WASHINGTON — The jury in the trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr., who served as Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, has heard powerful evidence that two other officials were responsible for disclosing the identity of a CIA officer, Valerie Plame.

Over a prosecution objection, the defense played an audio recording yesterday of a profanity-laden rant in which a former deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, told a prominent journalist, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, about Ms. Plame’s ties to Langley a month before she was unmasked in a syndicated column by Robert Novak. Mr. Novak also testified yesterday, recounting to jurors how Mr. Armitage’s identification of Ms. Plame, and a subsequent confirmation from President Bush’s top political aide, Karl Rove, resulted in the July 14, 2003, article that prompted the investigation that ultimately snared Mr. Libby.

Another Post reporter who joined the parade of press witnesses, Walter Pincus, added more drama to the session by declaring that he was told about Ms. Plame’s CIA connection by the White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, two days before Mr. Novak’s column appeared. That aspect of Mr. Fleischer’s role in the saga had not been made public previously.

Mr. Woodward testified that the disclosure from Mr. Armitage came in a June 13, 2003, interview as the pair discussed news reports that a former ambassador, Joseph Wilson IV, had traveled to Africa at the CIA’s request to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. Mr. Wilson later complained to reporters that the White House ignored his report that such a deal was impossible and deliberately inserted misleading language into President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address. Mr. Woodward, who was preparing a book on the run-up to the Iraq war, said he already knew the ambassador was Mr. Wilson, though that fact had not been published. “It was Joe Wilson who was sent by the agency,” the newsman said to Mr. Armitage, according to the recording.

• Hear an audio recording of Armitage and Woodward
• Read the entire transcript

“His wife works in the agency,” Mr. Armitage replied, effectively identifying Ms. Plame.

“Why doesn’t that come out?” Mr. Woodward asked.

“Everyone knows it,” Mr. Armitage said.

“Everyone knows,” the journalist said.

While the transcript introduced by the defense suggests that both men acknowledged widespread knowledge of Ms. Plame’s CIA employment, the recording is more ambiguous. Both men were overtalking each other. Mr. Woodward testified that he did not know anything at that point about Mr. Wilson’s wife and was initially referring to why the ambassador’s identity had been kept out of the press. In fact, the Watergate veteran seems to have been oblivious to the news about the wife until the third time Mr. Armitage mentioned it.

The recording also provides fodder for those who see the trial as related to the policy disputes that pitted the White House and Mr. Cheney’s office, on one side, against the CIA and the State Department, on the other. Mr. Armitage seems to use the pronoun “we” to refer to Langley and Foggy Bottom, and he alludes to tension with the White House. Mr. Armitage’s comments were peppered with obscenities, which were deleted from the recording and the transcript. “In the raw, it has a little more fire,” Mr. Woodward joked.

The exchange between Messrs. Woodward and Armitage is the first known instance in which a government official discussed Ms. Plame’s employment with a journalist. Mr. Libby stands accused of lying to the FBI and a grand jury about his conversations with reporters and other government officials. He has not been formally charged with violating the law by leaking Ms. Plame’s identity. However, the issue of who told reporters about her CIA connection was at the center of the investigation and is a steady theme at Mr. Libby’s trial, often in the foreground and always in the background.

Mr. Libby told the grand jury that he thought for a time that he learned of Ms. Plame’s identity from journalists. That assertion is more plausible if her identity was known in Washington circles before it appeared in Mr. Novak’s column. Mr. Woodward said he believes he brought notes about Ms. Plame to an interview with Mr. Libby in late June 2003 but has no memory of actually raising the issue with him.

On July 8, 2003, nearly a month after spilling the beans to Mr. Woodward, Mr. Armitage talked with Mr. Novak and allegedly went even further, offering up Ms. Plame’s first name. “Secretary Armitage said it was suggested by [Mr. Wilson’s] wife, Valerie, who is employed in the Counterproliferation Division at CIA,” Mr. Novak testified. The columnist said he used a “Who’s Who” book to find her last name.

Mr. Novak said that when he asked Mr. Rove about Ms. Plame’s CIA tie, the political aide replied, “Oh, you know about that, too?” The columnist said he took that as confirmation. “We had a modus operandi,” Mr. Novak said, adding at another point, “I would call him a very good source.”

The focus yesterday on Mr. Fleischer’s disclosure to Mr. Pincus is not an unalloyed positive for the defense case. Called earlier as a prosecution witness, the former White House spokesman testified that he first learned of Ms. Plame’s role from Mr. Libby. By highlighting the contact with Mr. Pincus, the defense could underscore the notion that Mr. Libby planted a seed that led to several disclosures that CIA officials have warned could have had grave consequences.

In response to defense questions, Mr. Fleischer confirmed that he told the grand jury he did not disclose Ms. Plame’s identity to Mr. Pincus. However, the White House spokesman told the grand jury he disclosed Ms. Plame’s CIA connection to two reporters, David Gregory of NBC News and John Dickerson of Time magazine, on July 11, 2003, during a presidential trip to Uganda. Mr. Fleischer testified to the grand jury and at the trial after demanding and receiving immunity from prosecution. Mr. Dickerson has denied ever hearing of Ms. Plame from Mr. Fleischer.

Mr. Pincus’s testimony also painted Mr. Libby as willing to twist the facts in order to distance his boss, Mr. Cheney, from the controversy over Mr. Wilson’s trip. Mr. Pincus confirmed that Mr. Libby was an unidentified source for a statement that the former ambassador’s mission “was triggered by questions raised by an aide to Vice President Cheney.” A Senate report and other trial testimony indicate that the inquiries came from Mr. Cheney himself, though he was apparently unaware that the Wilson trip took place until word of it began to hit the newspapers.

A key defense goal in calling yesterday’s press witnesses seemed to be to elicit the fact that Mr. Libby never disclosed Ms. Plame’s identity to them and therefore could not have been on a campaign to expose her. Several of those who testified had won Pulitzer Prizes, facts that the defense elicited, perhaps to underscore their credibility and their diligence. However, the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, noted that a former New York Times reporter who testified for the prosecution and flatly contradicted Mr. Libby, Judith Miller, also has won a Pulitzer Prize, though the defense has rejected her testimony as unreliable.

Judge Reggie Walton signaled yesterday that if Mr. Libby does not take the stand, the defense will be precluded from presenting some evidence and arguments that memory failures account for any misstatements by the defendant. The judge’s ruling drew an extended protest from the defense, prompting further speculation that Mr. Libby will not testify. The defense insisted that no decision has been made. It also remains unclear whether the widely anticipated testimony by Mr. Cheney will ever transpire.