Bush Aide Is Focus of Debate Tape Investigation

Law enforcement officials looking into the leak of confidential debate material from the George W. Bush campaign remain focused on a low-level employee in Bush’s outside media operation despite the woman’s vigorous denials, federal sources said Friday.

Forensic evidence developed by the FBI lab links the employee, Juanita Yvette Lozano, 30, to a package containing sensitive internal Bush campaign documents and a videotape of Bush practicing for the upcoming presidential debate, the sources said. The package arrived Sept. 13 in the Washington offices of Tom Downey, an advisor to Vice President Al Gore, who turned the material over to the FBI.

A federal source said that the label on the Express Mail package received by Downey corresponds to the date and time Lozano was filmed by a security camera mailing a package in the Austin, Texas, post office.

Bush campaign officials, who earlier this week pointedly complained about the direction of the FBI investigation, are now saying they are just waiting for the agency to finish. Lozano--who worked at the Austin firm of top Bush consultant Mark McKinnon--did not return telephone calls.

Campaign aides have said the three known copies of the tape--one of which was kept at McKinnon’s firm Maverick Media, are accounted for.

Lozano, who was interviewed by the FBI last week, has become the clear focus of law enforcement authorities, according to sources. On Thursday, the FBI seized a computer from McKinnon’s office that had been used primarily by Lozano.

In recent days the FBI has also obtained a second fingerprint sample from Lozano and are comparing her prints to those on the package.