Robert Novak

Robert Novak is at the center of the Valerie Plame affair, because it was his column that first named her as a CIA agent:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

Interestingly, Novak called on the White House to declassify Wilson's 2002 report to the CIA, something that has not yet occurred:

The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately ignored Wilson's advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA summary of what their envoy reported. The Agency never before has declassified that kind of information, but the White House would like it to do just that now -- in its and in the public's interest.

Novak told the Washington Post in September that CIA officials had asked that he not use Plame's name in the story but that it was a "very weak request. If it was put on a stronger basis, I would have considered it."

Novak is linked to another famous leak -- one that got Karl Rove kicked off George H.W. Bush's campaign for president.