(LOs angeles, ZZZ) - Former British tabloid editor Piers Morgan has demanded an apology from a lawmaker who made claims about him admitting to phone hacking, at the London hearing which quizzed Rupert Murdoch.
In an angry on-air exchange Tuesday, Morgan, now a presenter for US television news network CNN, challenged Member of Parliament Louise Mensch to repeat her claim that he had "boasted" of phone hacking in a book about his tabloid editor days.
She declined to do so, saying she had been covered by parliamentary privilege, which protects her from legal action for anything said inside parliament -- and which does not apply if it is repeated elsewhere.
In the committee hearing which grilled Murdoch and his son James over the phone hacking scandal rocking the tycoon's media empire, Mensch said Morgan had boasted about using a phone hacking "trick" to win a scoop of the year award.
"That is a former editor of the Daily Mirror being very open about his personal use of phone hacking," she said in the hearing.
But Morgan, a former editor of the Mirror and of Murdoch's now-shuttered News of the World, said he had never claimed to have used phone hacking himself in his book.
In his 2005 book "The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade," Morgan recounted how someone warned him how his phones could be hacked.
"Apparently if you don't change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don't answer, tap in the standard four-digit code to hear all your messages," he says in the book.
"I'll change mine just in case, but it makes me wonder how many public figures and celebrities are aware of this little trick."
Morgan, speaking from Los Angeles where he presents his nightly interview show, said of Mensch: "I'm amused by her cowardice in refusing to repeat that allegation now that she's not in parliament covered by privilege.
"She came out with an absolute blatant lie during those proceedings. At no stage in my book or indeed outside of my book have I ever boasted of using phone hacking for any stories."
And he added: "For the record, in my time at the Mirror and the News of the World I have never hacked a phone, told anybody to hack a phone or published any story based on the hacking of a phone."
In an increasingly tetchy exchange, during which Mensch said Morgan was a rich man and accused him of threatening her, the former newspaperman added: "I think you should apologize for being a liar."
He repeatedly bashed her for invoking parliamentary privilege and said Mensch should "show some balls" and repeat her claims outside the hearing.
Asking her to produce evidence to back her claim, he said: "If there is no evidence for that, are you going to publicly apologize to me, and to CNN right now for such an outrageous lie?"
"I feel no need whatsoever to apologize," said the lawmaker.
Morgan, who was sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror in 2004 for publishing fake photos of British soldiers purportedly abusing Iraqis in Basra, joined CNN in January, taking over from veteran interviewer Larry King.
