Cathie Martin and Russert to Testify During Libby Trial

Cathie Martin, wife of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, is scheduled to be back on the stand Monday to testify in the trial of  I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby, aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, allegedly lying to a Grand Jury about his role in leaking the name of CIA employees Valerie Plame.

Tim Russert, the moderator of Meet the Press, is also expected to testify this week.

In the indictment handed up in 2005, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald said Libby claimed to have learned Plame's name from Russert. Then, according the indictment, passed the information on to others. Libby's caveat when passing along the information was that it came  from a reporter, Russert, and therefore Libby could not confirm it.

The indictment alleges that version of the story in untrue. Fitzgerald said Libby had learned the name from at least four sources in the government before the conversation with Russert. It also says that Libby did not discuss the name with Russert, and that he did not say,--when passing Plame's name on to others--that it was from a reporter.

Russert has said he did not know Plame worked for the CIA until he read it in a column by Robert Novak, and NBC News had not reported about her before the July 14 date of that column, NBC has said.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.