WASHINGTON – A former Republican campaign volunteer in Alabama told CBS's 60 Minutes of what she viewed as a secret five-year campaign to ruin former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman. The claim, aired Sunday, was denounced as a fabrication by the state GOP.

Jill Simpson, a lawyer who is no longer with the Republican Party, said White House adviser Karl Rove asked her to try to prove that Mr. Siegelman, a Democrat, was cheating on his wife.

Party officials said Ms. Simpson was no more than a low-level volunteer for individual campaigns, if anything, and would not have had access to the kind of information she alleged on Sunday's 60 Minutes episode.

Ms. Simpson said Mr. Rove, then a White House political strategist, asked her in 2001 to find evidence that Mr. Siegelman was cheating on his wife. Ms. Simpson said it wasn't the first time that Mr. Rove – who was active in Alabama politics before going to the White House – had asked her to find damaging information about opposing campaigns.

She had not mentioned Mr. Rove directly speaking to her previously. In her earlier sworn statements, she said she heard party operatives running Republican Bob Riley's campaign for governor discuss political influence from Mr. Rove behind Mr. Siegelman's prosecution on corruption charges.

Mr. Rove declined to be interviewed by 60 Minutes and by The Associated Press. But his attorney, Robert Luskin, denied Ms. Simpson's allegations.

"60 Minutes owes Mr. Rove an apology for circulating this false and foolish story," Mr. Luskin said.

Mr. Siegelman, who narrowly lost to Mr. Riley in 2002, was convicted on federal bribery and obstruction charges in June 2006. He is serving a sentence of more than seven years.

Alabama Republican Party officials said Ms. Simpson was fabricating her stories.

"We can find not one instance of [Ms. Simpson] volunteering or working on behalf of the Alabama Republican Party," state GOP chairman Mike Hubbard said in a written statement.

Ms. Simpson's attorney, Priscilla Duncan, disputed that account and said Ms. Simpson could provide details of fundraisers and other activities she helped arrange.

Rob Riley, the governor's son, has not denied that Ms. Simpson had some volunteer involvement in the 2002 campaign, but he and others at the top of the organization have disputed her accounts.

"I haven't seen a case with this many red flags on it that pointed towards a real injustice being done," Grant Woods, a former Republican attorney general of Arizona, said on the 60 Minutes segment.

Ben Evans,

The Associated Press