FBI Opens Full Debate Tape Inquiry

A U S T I N, Texas, Oct. 1 -- The FBI has launched a full criminal investigation as it seeks to find out how GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush’s secret debate prep material ended up in the hands of an adviser to his Democratic rival, Al Gore.

The FBI inquiry has already zeroed in on one suspect, Yvette Lozano, an employee of a media consulting firm that does work for the Bush campaign, to a package containing Bush campaign documents and a videotape of Bush practicing for the upcoming presidential debates.

“We are pleased the FBI is digging, and digging deep,” Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters this afternoon. “We want them to get to the bottom of it.”

The package containing the sensitive material arrived Sept. 13 in the Washington offices of Tom Downey, an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. Downey turned the material over to the FBI.

A law enforcement source confirmed the Post report that the label on the Express Mail package received by Downey also directly corresponds to the date and time Lozano was filmed by a security camera mailing a package in an Austin, Texas, post office. Bush’s national campaign headquarters are in Austin.

Lozano insists the package she sent did not contain the video, but a pair of pants from The Gap that she was sending back for her boss, Bush media adviser Mark McKinnon.

Lozano told ABCNEWS that agents have fingerprinted her — for a second time — and have confiscated her office computer.

Late last week, two agents questioned her and, in an exclusive interview with ABCNEWS, she said they warned her that her arrest was a possibility.

“Their words were, ‘We guarantee you will not be arrested if you tell us right now who put you up to this,’” Lozano said.

Video Raises Questions

The agency’s suspicions were aroused by the post office surveillance video, which showed Lozano mailing a package on Sept. 11.