The Secret Snitch: John Hannah

Larisa Alexandrovna and Jason Leopold of Raw Story have just delivered a major scoop in the CIA leak investigation (hat tip TalkLeft). They write:

A senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is
cooperating with special prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald in the outing of CIA agent Valerie
Plame Wilson, sources close to the investigation
say.

Individuals familiar with Fitzgerald’s case tell
RAW STORY that John Hannah, a senior
national security aide on loan to Vice President
Dick Cheney from the offices of then-Under
Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security Affairs, John Bolton, was
named as a target of Fitzgerald’s probe. They
say he was told in recent weeks that he could
face imminent indictment for his role in leaking
Plame-Wilson’s name to reporters unless he
cooperated with the investigation.

Others close to the probe say that if Hannah is
cooperating with the special prosecutor then
he was likely going to be charged as a
co-conspirator and may have cut a deal.

This is a major development if true (and I suspect that it is). Hannah must have been one of the original leakers, perhaps even Novak's source. Remember this famous passage from the Washington Post way back in September 2003?

Yesterday, a senior administration official said
that before Novak's column ran, two top White
House officials called at least six Washington
journalists and disclosed the identity and
occupation of Wilson's wife.

Smart money says those two officials were John Hannah and Scooter Libby. If so, then the "ahead of the pack" award goes to UPI reporter Richard Sale who wrote the following back in February 2004 (again, hat tip TalkLeft):

Federal law-enforcement officials said that
they have developed hard evidence of
possible criminal misconduct by two
employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's
office related to the unlawful exposure of a
CIA officer's identity last year. The
investigation, which is continuing, could lead
to indictments, a Justice Department official
said.

According to these sources, John Hannah
and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, were the two Cheney employees.
"We believe that Hannah was the major
player in this," one federal law-enforcement
officer said. Calls to the vice president's office
were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby
return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to
Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of
doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to
name superiors, one federal law-enforcement
official said.

How is it that everyone (myself included) has overlooked this article?