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White House denies leaking information to unveil CIA agent
By BENNETT ROTH
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The White House on Monday rebuffed Democrats' calls for an independent prosecutor to probe charges that administration officials illegally disclosed a CIA operative whose husband had challenged Bush's weapons claims in Iraq.

A presidential spokesman also denied that Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, leaked the information....

...Rove has faced accusations before that he planted stories with Novak.

In 1992, Rove was fired as a consultant for the Bush-Quayle Texas campaign, after officials suspected that he was the source for a column by Novak and Roland Evans that portrayed the Texas presidential operation as in disarray. Rove was accused of making up the story because of a feud with the campaign's chairman, Rob Mosbacher Jr., whom the column reported, erroneously, was to be dumped. ...