The Libby trial has brought to light a wealth of information about how the Vice President's office was centrally involved in the Plame leak, but when I talk to ordinary people (not fanatics like you and me) about these revelations, many of them tell me that it's all just too confusing for them to comprehend.
I attended some of the trial as a reporter for BTC News, and I've distilled a lot of the testimony into a flow chart that I posted on our site and then later put on t-shirts, mugs, and postcards at CafePress.
The chart shows how information about Valerie Plame's CIA employment status flowed from the CIA and State Department through the White House and eventually to reporters, including Bob Novak, who wrote the article that disclosed her identity to the public on July 14, 2003. It all started in May of 2003, when Dick Cheney began worrying about reports written by people like Sy Hersh and Nick Kristof that accused the administration of using phony intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. One Kristof article mentioned a former ambassador who had been sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate claims Iraq was trying to buy uranium there, and who then reported back to the CIA and State Department that the claim was false. Cheney asked his top aide Scooter Libby to find out who sent Joe Wilson to Africa. That's the blue arrow on the chart going from Cheney to Libby. On May 29, Libby asked Marc Grossman in the State Department to find out (blue arrow), but he didn't get a response (red arrow) until June 11. One day earlier, he had asked the Vice President's communication director Cathie Martin (blue arrow) to contact the CIA for more information, and she asked CIA public information officer Bill Harlow (another blue arrow) who gave them the information on Plame that same day (red arrows marked '6/10'). When Cheney found out that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent and that she had recommended him for the trip, he somehow decided that that was something that would discredit Wilson's findings. Yeah, I know. It doesn't make any sense. But that just goes to show how desperate they were.
There are some arrows on the chart that are speculative or that represent possible lies by members of the conspiracy. There is no proof that Cheney told Bush, for example, though it seems likely, especially considering Libby's grand jury testimony that Bush was very interested in the Kristof article. Also, there is no proof that Judy Miller gave Plame's name to Bob Novak. Judy Miller knew the name (it was in her notes), and she says she talked to others about it (although she conveniently says she can't remember who). Novak, of course, made up the story that he found Plame's name in Wilson's 'Who's Who' entry, but why would he use her maiden name in an article disclosing her CIA employment? She used that name only in her CIA work, so it's pretty obvious he was told by someone in the know.
Libby is currently being tried not for the leak but for lying to federal investigators who were investigating the leak. Libby claimed that he learned about Plame on July 10 from NBC's Tim Russert. During the trial, Russert was the star prosecution witness. He testified that it was "impossible" that he had been Libby's source, since he didn't know Valerie Plame existed until several days later when he read the Novak article.
Some people have asked me why I haven't put Russert on the chart. Defense lawyers claimed that Russert could've easily learned about Plame from his colleague David Gregory, who supposedly learned from Ari Fleischer, who learned from...oops, back to Libby again! It would work, as long as you introduce time travel.