With leak probe.

IN AN E-MAIL to staff Tuesday morning, the White House general counsel’s office said the Justice Department had notified it of an investigation “into possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identify of an undercover CIA employee.”
“You must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the department’s investigation,” the e-mail said.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan later told reporters that “the president has directed the White House to cooperate fully with this investigation. The president wants to get to the bottom of this.”

INDEPENDENT COUNSEL?
The FBI, which is under the Justice Department, will head the investigation, but Democrats want Attorney General John Ashcroft to go further and appoint an independent counsel to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute.
“There are many serious allegations that this is at the highest level of the White House,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday. At the very least, he said, there’s “an appearance of conflict” that the Justice Department won’t be impartial in its inquiry.
Asked if Democratic demands weren’t just politics in an election year, Schumer said the seriousness of the allegations required an independent track. “It’s the right thing to do,” he said.