Lewis (Scooter) Libby
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, March 1, 2001. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette)
Libby is Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff — and has a long history with him.
Libby studied political science at Yale University under Paul Wolfowitz, later undersecretary of defence, in the 1980s. He began working with Wolfowitz under Cheney during the administration of the first President Bush. As part of his job, the team came up with a national security strategy for the post-Cold War era.
The document they came up with called for a huge military buildup and pre-emptive strikes against countries that were developing weapons of mass destruction. The document was leaked to the New York Times. It caused such an uproar that the Bush administration distanced itself from it.
But after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, much of what was in the document became policy for the second Bush administration.
Libby played a prominent role in building the White House's case against Saddam Hussein, compiling allegations of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
In July 2003, he spoke with Matt Cooper and Judith Miller - journalists with Time magazine and the New York Times, respectively - about the identity of a CIA undercover agent, Valerie Plame. Plame is married to Joseph Wilson, who denounced the administration's claims that Saddam was trying to procure uranium from Africa.
Libby is the only administration official charged in connection with the leak investigation. He is accused of lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about when he learned Plame's identity, and what he later told reporters.
He was convicted of four charges in March 2007, including obstruction of justice, making false statements to the FBI and two counts of perjury. He was acquitted on a false statements charge.
Libby was sentenced to 30 months in jail, but Bush commuted the term in July 2007, calling it "excessive." The conviction, a $250,000 fine and two years of probation stood.
Karl Rove
Karl Rove, Sept. 1, 2004. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Rove is one of President George W. Bush's closest advisers. He is seen as the architect of Bush's White House victories.
Rove urged Bush to target evangelical Christians during the 2004 election campaign as the issues of abortion and gay marriage hit the voters' radar screens.
The exit polls showed that it wasn't Iraq or the economy that was most on voters' minds on election day. Moral issues were key - and 75 per cent of the people who listed those as their concern voted for Bush.
Notes written by Time's Matt Cooper hinted that Rove was the one who leaked Valerie Plame's name to him.
Plame named Rove in a lawsuit, along with 12 other White House officials. The former CIA operative accused them of revealing her identity, and putting Plame and her family at risk. However, a federal judge has since dismissed that suit.
Rove was never charged with a criminal offence in the Plame affair.
Patrick Fitzgerald
Patrick Fitzgerald, Oct. 12, 2005. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Fitzgerald has served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois since Sept. 1, 2001. He was named special counsel to investigate the alleged outing of a member of the CIA, which is a crime under American law.
While in Chicago, Fitzgerald supervised a public corruption investigation that led to the conviction of more than 70 people, including 30 public employees and officials. Many of those charged were accused of accepting bribes to hand out licences to unqualified truck drivers.
In 1994, Fitzgerald became the prosecutor in the case against Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others charged in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
In July 2005, Fitzgerald sent New York Times reporter Judith Miller to jail for failing to comply with a court order to testify before a grand jury about conversations she had with sources regarding the outing Valerie Plame, even though she never wrote a story about it.
In March 2007, after Libby's conviction, he declared the investigation closed.
Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney, July 19, 2004. (AP Photo/Daniel Miller)
Cheney is George W. Bush's vice-president and has held that post since January 2001. He was secretary of defence under the first President Bush and directed the first Gulf War.
In 1995, Cheney became chairman and chief executive officer of Haliburton Corp., a major player in the energy sector.
Cheney has been described as the most powerful vice-president in many years - almost prime ministerial in the power that he wields.
Cheney's name was mentioned in connection to the investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame. However, he was formally accused of involvement with the case.
Judith Miller
Judith Miller, Oct. 18, 2005. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Miller is a reporter for the New York Times. She was jailed for 85 days for refusing to reveal the source of a story she never wrote.
According to a subpoena, Miller met with a government official - later revealed to be Lewis Libby - on July 8, 2003. That was two days after former ambassador Joseph Wilson criticized the Bush administration in an opinion piece in the New York Times for manufacturing evidence to justify an attack on Iraq.
Miller said she got assurances from her source that it was all right to reveal what they had said to each other before she would agree to talk to the grand jury. Miller's lawyer confirmed that her source was Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby - although Miller has never said that publicly.
Robert Novak
Robert Novak
Novak is the political commentator who revealed Valerie Plame's identity in his newspaper column on July 14, 2003. He reported that he got the information from two senior administration officials.
Rove was later identified as one. There are reports that Novak has co-operated with Fitzgerald's investigation, but neither he nor his lawyer has said so publicly.
Former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage admitted he was the primary source for Novak's article. However, Armitage said that he did not know of Plame's covert status before mentioned her in a "casual conversation" with Novak.
Novak has been a fixture on CNN for years. He's also been criticized as being an operative of the Republican party while posing as a journalist.
Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson
Valerie Plame, left, and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, sit in their convertible in this Nov. 18, 2003 photograph. (AP Photo/Vanity Fair, Jonas Karlsson, File)
Until July 2003, very few people knew that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative. Her husband - Joseph Wilson - was much better known.
A former ambassador, Wilson was sent to Africa to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein tried to procure weapons-grade uranium to build weapons of mass destruction. The allegation formed part of the Bush administration's reasons for invading Iraq.
Wilson said he found no evidence and he wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times that was highly critical of the government, saying it had twisted intelligence to back up its arguments for going to war.
Soon after the article appeared, Robert Novak identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA operative and said she was involved in the decision to send her husband to Africa.
A few days later, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper published a story that made similar allegations.
The stories blew Plame's cover by identifying her as an agent. They also struck at Wilson's credibility, suggesting he was sent on the Africa mission by his wife.
In October 2007, Plame released a book called Fair Game - My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House telling her side of the story.
