The prime minister's official spokesman has denied threatening the Daily Telegraph with tougher press regulation if it continued to investigate Culture Secretary Maria Miller's expenses.
Craig Oliver said ex-editor Tony Gallagher's claim was "utterly false".
He said he had intervened in December 2012 because reporters on the story were putting "inappropriate" pressure on Mrs Miller's father.
But Mr Gallagher claimed it had been "menacing" and he felt "threatened".
He had been editor of the newspaper when it published a story about the culture secretary's expenses at the end of 2012.
The Telegraph reported that she had claimed £90,000 in expenses towards the mortgage on a "large detached property in south London" where her parents lived, while designating her main home as a rented property in her constituency of Basingstoke.
Mr Gallagher suggested that the newspaper had been pressurised over the story - which came to light at a time when the press was in a fierce dispute with the government over plans for an overhaul of regulation following the Leveson inquiry into press standards.
'Great favour'He said a reporter working on the story had been contacted by Mrs Miller's special adviser, and that Mr Oliver had implied that the report was "badly timed".
"Start Quote
End Quote Chi Onwurah Shadow Cabinet Office MinisterLetting Maria Miller off the hook speaks volumes about David Cameron's leadership"
"I got a call from Craig Oliver pointing out that she [Maria Miller] is looking at Leveson," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"These seem to be examples of an attempt to lean on a newspaper and prevent it going about its legitimate business," Mr Gallagher said.
"She has done the free press a great favour," he said.
"Maria Miller provides a cast-iron example of why politicians should have no power over the press.
"Bear in mind this story came to light just after the Leveson inquiry was published, and bear in mind the menacing way the minister, her special advisor and Downing Street reacted to that story, and threatened me, the newspaper and the reporter in question.
"It's actually a clear example of why MPs and politicians in general should have no locus over a free press. Ironically you would know nothing about this story were it not for a free press."
But Mr Oliver, a former BBC executive who became No 10 director of communications in 2011, said: "It is utterly false for Tony Gallagher to suggest he was threatened over Leveson by me in any way.
"My conversation with him was about the inappropriate door-stepping of an elderly man."
'Utterly condemnatory'On Thursday, the Commons Standards Committee ordered Mrs Miller to apologise to MPs for breaching the parliamentary code of conduct with her "attitude" towards an inquiry into the culture secretary's expenses claims.
She had supplied the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, whose role it is to investigate allegations of abuses of the rules on expenses, with "incomplete documentation and fragmentary information," it said.
The commissioner concluded that she had over-claimed by £45,000 for expenses towards mortgage interest payments and council tax.
But the committee, which comprises five Conservative MPs, four Labour MPs, one Lib Dem MP and three members of the public, decided that she needed to pay back just £5,800.
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Maria Miller thanked the committee "for bringing this matter to an end"
In a short statement to the House of Commons on Thursday, Mrs Miller said she "fully" accepted the committee's conclusions and apologised "unreservedly".
But Mr Gallagher said: "Reading the 113-page report it's very hard to see why she has been cleared.
"The commissioner in fact concluded that she had made a very substantial gain and recommended that she should be paying north of £40,000, and the language throughout the report is utterly condemnatory of the minister.
Analysis
Ed Lowther Political reporter, BBC News
Should Maria Miller have repaid £45,000 or £5,800?
The standards commissioner believed she had over-claimed by the larger sum, but the MP claimed it was the latter. The committee, which ultimately decides, agreed with Mrs Miller.
The discrepancy springs from the difference between the size of her mortgage and the purchase price of the five-bedroom property.
The commissioner believed she should only have been able to claim expenses for interest payments on the original mortgage of £215,000 - taken out in 1996, nine years before she was elected - and based her calculations on that.
But the committee thought this reasoning could have perverse consequences: Why should an MP who had bought a property on the cheap and did it up before entering politics receive less than an MP from a wealthier background who had simply bought a pricier home to begin with?
It said "a strict interpretation of the rule would not be appropriate" and she was entitled to claim expenses for interest on the much larger £525,000 mortgage she had on entering the Commons.
Mrs Miller acknowledged she had over-claimed by £5,800 when her tracker mortgage fell but her claims remained the same, and offered to pay this back. This had been "inadvertent", she told the inquiry.
"The fact that the MPs have then marked their own homework and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and suggested that she should only be made to repay a mere £5,000 is neither here nor there - the language of the report is shocking in its tone, and I think Maria Miller stands condemned by her own actions."
'Double standards'Prime Minister David Cameron - speaking on a visit to Dawlish, in Devon - stood by the minister.
"What happened yesterday (Thursday) is that Maria Miller was actually cleared of the original charge made against her.
"It was found she had made mistakes, she accepted that, repaid the money, she apologised unreservedly to the House of Commons, so I think we should leave it there."
But Labour seized on the row to launch an attack on the prime minister.
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Chi Onwurah said: "Letting Maria Miller off the hook speaks volumes about David Cameron's leadership.
"His weakness and double standards on the issue of Maria Miller's expenses are totally unacceptable and completely out of touch.
"We had a contemptuous 32-second response from a cabinet minister followed by a pat on the back from the prime minister.
"It is yet another example of how Cameron only looks after one of his own and always stands up for the wrong people.
"We must have the very highest standards in public office. There can be no going back to the bad old days of expenses."
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