The Scooter (Punch) and Judy Show

So how "freely offered" was Cheney's Scooter Libby's waiver to testify to Judy Miller? Questions get raised.

NEW YORK Reuters' Adam Entous, who has been on top of developments in the Plame probe all week, reported today that I. Lewis Libby, the top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, "got a push" from the federal prosecutor before telling New York Times reporter Judith Miller, in a Sept. 15 letter, that he wanted her to testify.

Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's encouragement, in a letter obtained by Reuters, "has prompted some lawyers in the case to question whether Cheney‘s aide was acting completely voluntarily when he gave Miller the confidentiality waiver she had insisted on," Entous observes.

Quoting from the Fitzgerald letter to Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, on Sept. 12: "I would welcome such a communication reaffirming Mr. Libby‘s waiver. It would be viewed as cooperation with the investigation."

Entous notes: "Some lawyers in the case called the letter a thinly veiled threat seeking Libby‘s cooperation, and said it raised questions about whether Libby‘s waiver was as voluntary as Miller and her lawyers had described."

Fitzgerald will speak with Miller again on Tuesday, at least partly about some notes she has discovered of her talk with Libby in June 2003, which took place earlier than the other conversations she has already detailed for the grand jury.