Well, in a truly he said/she said story, it turns out Mr. Ben Bradlee is on tape alluding to Richard Armitage as the original source for Woodward, and therefore probably the original source for Novak.

In an interview, Mr. Bradlee said that he had been told about Mr. Woodward’s source although he did not recall saying the exact words attributed to him by the Vanity Fair reporter. Mr. Bradlee said his information about Mr. Armitage was imprecise, although he said Mr. Armitage’s identification as Mr. Woodward’s source was “an inference that could be drawn.”

A spokesman for Vanity Fair defended the accuracy of the quotes, saying that the author of the article, Marie Brenner, said that she had tape recorded Mr. Bradlee’s comments.

Couple of observations here related to some debate over at Tom Maguire’s site. First off, while the Federal Government is big, certain areas are very small. For example, NASA does a lot in a year a budget that the DoD burns through in a few weeks. We are a small community were people know each other directly or indirectly. It is not that large of a community – even world wide.

The same goes for the Intelligence community and those in the State Department which deal with the intelligence community. And fame only intensifies the coziness of the business. A lot of people are wondering how Armitage could know Joe and Valerie. Well Joe would be extremely well known for his final days in Baghdad during the first Gulf War. Armitage and Wilson are both State Department employees, top level at that, live in DC and probably congregate in the same circles and events.

Valerie is even easier to know about if your area of concern is nuclear proliferation. The year long debate about Saddam’s WMD would put her in meetings with State Department officials over and over again. Because while she was not top level manager (many people shun these jobs because it takes them away from their work) she did have enough clout to get Joe Wilson to Niger on a major question for the administration. My guess is she is a bit well known in those circles and would present to the broader interested community. If you know Valerie, then you will hear about her husband. She would also be well known for her stint in Athens and the fact her cover was blown by Aldridge Ames.

People just do not appreciate how small the intelligence community is and how people can become well known when they are at the nexus of key events or are married to other power brokers. So knowing Valerie is not a big leap.

Bradlee claims he learned of the connection independently of Woodward – which is entirely understandable. Armitage may have alerted some people in State, maybe Collin Powell, of his discussions with the media when the issue started to blow up. He may have talked to more than Novak and Woodward. For example, this Knight Ridder story has too many details correct for the time period and is obviously from someone high up with excellent insight across organizations – like an Armitage.

I had suspected Tenet because of the detailed knowledge of the CIA side – but Armitage could know these details as well.
Now Armitage is the lone eception to come out with a denial, making it more and more likely he has an invite coming to the Scooter Libby trial – if it happens. Fitzgerald may fold to avoid the full story of his arrangement with Armitage. Keep in mind that, at the time, the focus of all the stories was forged documents used to go to war:

“Three senior administration officials said Vice President Dick Cheney and some officials on the National Security Council staff and at the Pentagon ignored the CIA’s reservations and argued that the president and others should include the allegation in their case against Saddam.

…

We’ve acknowledged that some documents were forged and we know now it was a mistake to give them credence,” said a fourth senior administration official who defended the White House’s handling of the matter.

There are FOUR senior administration officials and one CIA official sourcing this story which comes out Jun 12, 2003.  That is before Wilson’s story comes out in the NY Times.

Anyway, I am not surprised Bradlee could find another source to the Woodward/Novak leak.  No one has claimed they are the only ones to know.  Interestingly, it appears Pincus may be trying to avoid testifying at Libby’s trial according to Tom Maguire.  Ain’t going to happen.  If there is a trial Pincus and many other reporters will testify. Looks like The Minute Man agrees:

Well, he can push back all he wants – I’ll bet he still gets a subpoena, since Libby’s team seems to be worried about neither time nor money.

Got that right.