Former chief of staff to then US vice president Dick Cheney, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, listens to a speaker during a discussion on the Rumsfeld years at the Pentagon March 29, 2011 at The Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.
The Leak: In 2003, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that questioned the Bush administration’s justification for invading Iraq. A week later, journalist Richard Novak wrote a commentary about the diplomat and revealed that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a covert CIA operative. A lengthy investigation found the alleged leak to have come from inside the Bush administration. Valerie Plame Wilson resigned from her position at the CIA.
His Fate: I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was indicted by a grand jury and convicted on counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements. President Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence. The Wilsons filed a civil lawsuit against Libby and other White House officials. They held that the White House officials’ actions had put their safety in peril and invaded their privacy, TIME reported in 2006. The suit was dismissed in 2007.
MORE: Fall of a Vulcan