Washington ? Defense attorneys for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on Thursday won the opportunity to question a journalist they hope will undercut the prosecution’s perjury case against the former White House aide.

A battle over the scope of the defense case broke out just after Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald rested the government’s case in the CIA leak trial in midafternoon.

The prosecution presented 11 days of testimony ending with NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert. The familiar host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” contradicted Libby on whether they discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame on July 10, 2003, and Russert refused to budge from that under more than a day of cross-examination.

Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with lying to the FBI and a grand jury about his talks with reporters concerning Plame, and with obstructing an investigation into how her name and employment at CIA were leaked in July 2003, days after her husband, ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, criticized President Bush’s justifications for the Iraq war.

After the jury was sent home until Monday, prosecutors joined news media attorneys in efforts to limit the defense’s ability to call and question other journalists.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ruled that Libby’s lawyers can call New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson over objections from the prosecutors and her lawyer, Charles Leeper.

Defense attorneys want Abramson to repeat her out-of-court denials that reporter Judith Miller urged Abramson – then Washington bureau chief – to pursue the story of Plame’s role in sending her husband to Niger to investigate whether Iraq was trying to buy uranium there for nuclear weapons.

Miller testified she recommended Abramson pursue the Plame story after Libby told her of Plame’s role in the trip, which formed the basis for Wilson’s allegations that Bush twisted intelligence to justify the war.

Libby denies telling Miller about Plame’s CIA job or that she first proposed his trip. Libby’s attorneys believe that calling into question the next part of her story – her talk with Abramson – will cast doubt on her recollection of her talk with Libby.

Walton reserved judgment until Monday on how far the defense can go in questioning NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell about a videotaped interview she gave Oct. 3, 2003.

In the video, played with the jury out of the room, Mitchell said she and other intelligence reporters who were trying to find out who went to Niger knew that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. Since then, she has recanted that, claiming she got confused about the timing referenced by the questioner.