The Washington Post, which was the first to present the briefing claim, originally cited “several current and former U.S. officials” and “people familiar with the matter” as the sources of the information it later retracted. But it appears that competitive pressures and a lack of a response from Giuliani and his representatives on deadline helped push the stories in the wrong direction. “We weren’t rigorous enough,” conceded Times editor Dean Baquet in an interview Monday. Baquet said the Times reporters scrambled to match what appeared to be a major Giuliani scoop by The Post after it was published Thursday. “I think we all tend to drop our guard when we get beat and are trying to catch up,” he said. “We need to grill sources more to make sure we understand exactly what they’re confirming. We’ve all discussed it, corrected it, and we need to do better. Dealing with anonymous sources in law enforcement and intelligence is always hard.”