APChandra Levy, left, and Gary Condit pose for a picture in his Washington office
Gary Condit-Democrat, House of
Representatives from California
Flight Attendant Says Condit Asked Her to Lie
Back to the Politicians-Mostly Thieves, Liars, and Control Freaks Page
AP
Chandra Levy, left, and Gary Condit pose for a picture in his
Washington office
Monday, July 02, 2001
By Rita Cosby
Washington, D.C. — A flight attendant who said she had a long-term affair with Rep. Gary Condit says the congressman asked her to sign a declaration denying their relationship, and told her she did not need to talk to the FBI following the disappearance of Chandra Levy.
Anne Marie Smith, 39, said in an exclusive interview with Fox News that she refused to sign the draft of a declaration that was submitted by Condit attorneys to her lawyers, and insisted the California Democrat knew the document was a lie.
"Mr. Condit knew it was false and he was asking me to sign it and, I personally could never have signed it," Smith said in an interview on Monday. "I would never have signed it. And he was urging me to sign it, he said you don't want anything, this could be personally embarrassing for both of us."
Smith's lawyers on Monday evening supplied Fox News with a copy of what they said was a draft of the declaration. They said the document contained a note written by Don Thornton, an investigator who works with Condit's West Coast attorney.
Jim Robinson, Smith's attorney, claims to have had a phone conversation with Thornton in which the latter referred to the form as an "affidavit." Robinson says the document is indeed an affidavit, as opposed to a declaration, since it is composed of the specialized vocabulary of the legal profession called legalese.
Lawyers for Condit said on Monday night they did not know of any such document. Thornton spoke with Fox News and also denied any knowledge of the form.
An
investigator searches Chandra Levy's Washington apartment-AP
Condit lawyers have declined to comment on any relationship he may have had with Smith.
Smith also said she told Condit she had spoken to the FBI about the Levy case. "I left him a voicemail and I said, 'You need to call me, it's urgent,'" she said.
She said he called back the next day, and that he did not respond well when she told him what was happening.
"I said, I have been contacted by this agency, and I want you to know and I said, you know, it was just a routine questioning, they said they would keep my name confidential," she told Fox News.
"He was really upset with me, he said, 'Oh, I see how you are, I see what you're doing.' And I said, 'No, you know, I've never been in a situation like this.' ... He said 'You don't have to talk to the media, you don't have to talk to anybody. You don't even have to talk to the FBI.'"
Smith reportedly told the FBI she ended a year-long romantic relationship with Condit when she saw press reports about Levy, the missing Washington intern, a source close to the woman told Fox News.
Smith said she has not spoken to Condit since one or two weeks before the 24-year-old disappeared. Smith also said she knew the California Democrat was married and suspected he might be seeing someone else, but she didn't know for sure.
Smith also said Condit told her he was "lonely in Washington," with his chronically ill wife spending 99 percent of her time in California.
Condit has been the subject of much media and law enforcement attention in the weeks since he "broke off his close friendship" with Levy. He broke off the friendship only two days before she disappeared, the congressman told investigators, according to Fox News police sources.
The congressman provided the new details about his relationship with Levy in a second, hour-long interview with police, but stopped short of saying whether he and the 24-year-old had a romantic relationship, the sources said. Condit did, however, strongly hint the two had been lovers, the sources said.
When Condit delicately broke things off with Levy with the explanation that she was moving back to California, she was distraught, refusing to take no for an answer and even becoming obsessed with him, the sources said.
Levy called Condit several times on a special line in the 24 hours before she vanished, but he never returned those calls, the sources said.
Condit, 53 and married, has repeatedly said through public statements that he and Levy were only good friends, with his staff denying there was a romantic relationship.
Levy's parents, Susan and Robert Levy of Modesto, Calif., have hired former Washington homicide detectives to scour their daughter's Washington studio apartment for fibers, love letters, notes and any other clues that could help them find out what happened to their daughter, who has not been seen since April 30.
Fox News' Mike Emmanuel contributed to
this report.©Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2001 Standard & Poor's
Fox News Network, LLC 2001. All rights reserved.
The
Washington Times
www.washtimes.com
John Drake and Jim Keary
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published 7/4/01
Detectives investigating the
disappearance of Chandra Ann Levy have interviewed six women who
said they have had romantic relationships with Rep. Gary A.
Condit, who has said he is a "friend" of the missing
intern's, a law enforcement source said.
The women came forward after Miss
Levy was reported missing in early May, the law enforcement
source said. They included a United Airlines flight attendant who
said in a television interview Monday that Mr. Condit pressured
her to deny their yearlong affair in a written statement.
Flight attendant Anne Marie Smith,
39, of San Francisco said in her interview on Fox News that she
refused to sign the statement. Miss Smith, speaking in Seattle,
also said Mr. Condit told her not to cooperate with the FBI,
which had contacted her in the Levy investigation.
"We've talked to five other
women other than the flight attendant," the law enforcement
source said. "They are all types and ages."
Chris Murray, a spokesman for the
FBI's Washington Field Office, yesterday said the agency has
interviewed Miss Smith. He declined to comment further on the
Levy case or the Smith interview.
Police have said publicly that Mr.
Condit, who represents Miss Levy's hometown of Modesto, Calif.,
is not a suspect in her disappearance, which is being
investigated as a missing persons case.
In a written statement yesterday,
Mr. Condit denied telling Miss Smith to mislead investigators or
not talk to the FBI. "I have not asked anyone to refrain
from discussing this matter with authorities, nor have I
suggested anyone mislead the authorities," the California
Democrat's statement reads.
In addition, Mr. Condit's office in
California issued a statement from the law firm representing him
that disputes Miss Smith's account. Cotchett, Pitre and Simon
said it e-mailed a "draft" statement to Jim Robinson,
Miss Smith's attorney in Seattle, to clarify her relationship
with the congressman following a tabloid magazine report about
the matter.
Mr. Robinson was to review the
draft statement and "edit, cut, suggest" changes before
having Miss Smith sign it, the law firm statement reads. One part
of the statement would have Miss Smith, under penalty of perjury,
deny having had a "relationship with Congressman Condit
other than being acquainted with him. I do not and have not had a
romantic relationship with Congressman Condit."
Miss Levy, 24, a former intern at
the Bureau of Prisons, was last seen in the District on April 30,
when she canceled a gym membership near her apartment in the
Dupont Circle area. Police, citing bank, phone and computer
records, said this week she may have spent part of the next day
in her apartment.
Detectives found no signs of a
struggle in her apartment, and her money, credit cards and her
driver's license were with her packed luggage.
Police twice have interviewed Mr.
Condit, saying he provided useful information. Privately, law
enforcement sources said he provided few details and little more
than what was outlined in written statements to the media.
Authorities are trying to interview
Mr. Condit's wife, Carolyn, in California. Mrs. Condit, who is
reportedly critically ill, has been uncooperative in working out
ground rules for talks, sources said.
The law enforcement source said
Metropolitan Police detectives are coordinating with FBI agents
in California to see if other women have acknowledged having
affairs with Mr. Condit, 53.
In her televised interview Monday,
Miss Smith did not say Mr. Condit and Miss Levy were having an
affair, but she suspected he was seeing someone else, though she
did not know for sure. She said she had not spoken to Mr. Condit
since one or two weeks before Miss Levy vanished.
Law enforcement officials yesterday
refused to say if they were investigating Mr. Condit for
obstruction of justice in the wake of Miss Smith's televised
statement.
"We are continuing our
investigation and won't respond to rumors, innuendos or comments
made by others," said Sgt. Joe Gentile, spokesman for the
Metropolitan Police Department. "Our focus is the
disappearance of Miss Levy. We are trying to determine what
happened. That is the focus of our investigation."
Spokesmen for the U.S. Attorney's
Offices in the District, California and Seattle have refused to
comment on the case, saying they can neither confirm nor deny a
federal probe into whether Mr. Condit has interfered with the
investigation.
"If you've got someone
encouraging a potential witness to not be truthful about any
information that could be regarded as important ... to the
investigation, that could qualify as obstruction of
justice," said former federal prosecutor David Schertler,
who worked in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District
for 12 years.
An obstruction of justice charge
"covers a lot of different types of conduct that interfere
with authorities being able to carry out their
investigation," said Mr. Schertler, who served as chief of
the homicide section before becoming a defense attorney in 1996.
Copyright © 2001 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Aunt
Details Alleged Affair
Account Based on
Talks With Levy, Relative Says
By Allan Lengel and Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 6, 2001; Page B01
Chandra Levy's aunt said yesterday that her niece provided her with an extensive account of a relationship with Rep. Gary A. Condit, describing how the congressman went to great lengths to keep the liaison a secret and explicitly warned that he would stop seeing her if she told anyone.
Linda Zamsky's account of the relationship is based on conversations and meetings she said she had with Levy since last fall, when the 24-year-old intern at the Bureau of Prisons first told Zamsky that she was having a relationship with Condit. Zamsky, who became Levy's confidante, said she is speaking out publicly for the first time out of frustration with Condit, whose aides have adamantly denied the existence of a relationship.
"He was emphatic," Zamsky, relaying her conversations with Levy, said of Condit's caution over the liaison. "It had to remain secret. If anybody found out about this relationship, it was done, over, kaput."
The search for Levy, who was last seen in downtown Washington on April 30, moved on several fronts yesterday. Condit's wife, Carolyn, was interviewed by the FBI and D.C. police who are investigating what is still classified as a missing persons case. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said a suicide by Levy now seemed unlikely, discounting one possible explanation of her disappearance. And Condit's attorney released the longest statement to date, emphasizing the congressman's continuing cooperation.
Zamsky's account places Condit at the center of Levy's life in Washington -- a married man who gave her gifts, paid for a couple of plane trips to California, orchestrated their meetings and often spent weekends with her in his Adams Morgan apartment. The details contradict the account provided by Condit's aides and attorneys, who say there was no relationship.
Condit's chief of staff in Modesto, Calif., Mike Lynch, declined to comment on Zamsky's account of the relationship. He referred calls to Marina Ein, a public relations specialist hired yesterday by Abbe D. Lowell, an attorney for Condit. Ein also declined to comment on Zamsky's account, saying Condit's priority "is finding a young woman who seems to have vanished. The rest is sensationalism."
Zamsky's description of an affair, which has been provided to police and videotaped by investigators, raises the importance of Condit as a source of information on Levy. Police searching for a missing person generally focus on those who were closest to the individual, attempting to establish frame of mind, habits and behavior before the disappearance. In cases involving women who vanish, police pay particular attention to anyone with whom they were known to be having a sexual relationship.
In a 90-minute interview, Zamsky, 40, spoke of the secretive relationship described to her by Levy. The picture painted by the aunt is of a woman who relished the attention of the older man, heeded his caution and treasured his gifts, which included a gold bracelet and Godiva chocolates. Levy hoped Condit would marry her and even envisioned a life with children, the aunt said.
The first mention of a relationship took place at Thanksgiving, when Levy went to visit Zamsky in her home on Maryland's Eastern Shore. At the time, her niece emphasized the secretiveness of the affair and was reluctant to mention a name, said Zamsky, who is married to Levy's uncle.
"There was a look in her eyes. She was excited. She said he's here in Washington and he goes home occasionally. She said he's in government. She mentioned he had two kids," Zamsky said.
As they watched C-Span, Levy explained the dynamics of the House and Senate to her aunt and described her love interest as "looking a bit like Harrison Ford. She said he was lean, in good shape, worked out, very conscientious about his body for a 53-year-old."
"I asked, 'How do you get in touch with him if it's so secretive, this relationship?" Zamsky recalled. "And she said, well -- and this is when she came and accidentally said his name to me. She would dial a number. It would play music, and she would leave a message. . . . She said, 'I would also call the office, and they would answer 'Gary Condit.' And that's how his name came out."
"And she goes, 'oops.' She says, 'You didn't hear that.' And I said 'no' and of course I did," Zamsky said. "I made real light of it. I kind of dummied up because I wanted her to feel comfortable."
Levy then confided that the relationship was already intimate.
At that time, Zamsky said, Levy described how Condit instructed her to avoid hinting to anyone in his building that she was visiting him. If she was in the elevator and someone pressed his floor, she was to press a different floor. If they asked if she was new in the building, she was told to say she was visiting a sick friend.
Zamsky said Levy told her that she and Condit spent a lot of time in the apartment; sometimes he would cook, sometimes they ordered in. When they went out for dinner, Levy told her aunt, she would go downstairs first, hail a cab and then get inside. Condit, whose apartment faces the street, would then come running down, wearing a baseball cap and jeans, and hop in. They would go to the suburbs, often for Thai food.
Zamsky said Levy told her that she was free to date other men as well. "She said, 'No.' She wanted this to be a monogamous relationship. She was willing to do whatever he wanted her to do in order for this relationship to work."
Condit would compliment Levy, Zamsky said, telling her: "It's nice to see someone who is willing to be flexible with my schedule and my lifestyle. I haven't had that in a relationship before."
In January, Zamsky said, she spoke to Levy by phone and her niece mentioned possibly moving in with Condit at some point. Zamsky thought that it might just be wishful thinking because he was still married. But Levy told her that she thought it could work.
In early April, Levy went to Zamsky's home for Passover, where she was joined by her family, visiting from California. Zamsky said Levy told her the relationship was progressing -- she talked about carrying on a secretive affair for five years and then marrying Condit and having a baby.
During Levy's visits and in telephone calls, the aunt said, she heard that Condit had bought her plane tickets so she could return to California for school. On Valentine's Day, she received chocolates and a card. Once, Levy showed Zamsky a gold bracelet she said the congressman had given her on Valentine's Day or Christmas.
The relationship seemed to become more serious in April, Zamsky said. The night before Passover began, Levy and Zamsky went out for pizza and then ice cream.
"We bought Ben & Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough. We didn't buy the low-fat. She said that's what they eat. She didn't use his name. She said her 'boyfriend, my guy.' Most of the time she referred to him as 'my guy.' "
After Passover, Zamsky said, she did not talk to Levy for a couple of weeks. Then on April 29, the day before Levy was last seen, Levy left a message on Zamsky's voice mail. Zamsky would not hear from her niece again.
"Hi, Linda. This is Chandra. My internship is over," Levy said in the message. "I'm planning on packing my bags in the next week or 10 days. Heading home for a while. Don't know what I'm going to do this summer. And I really have some big news or something important to tell. Call me. . . ."
Zamsky said yesterday that she did not know what Levy was referring to, but added that the 24-year-old did not seem upset.
Lowell, Condit's attorney, did not return phone calls for comment yesterday. In his statement yesterday, he noted that the congressman has given two "substantial interviews to the police and directed staff to provide information that may be requested of them."
The statement also castigated the media, citing the "seemingly unbounded effort to expose highly personal and private Condit family matters." That is an apparent allusion to media coverage of Anne Marie Smith, a flight attendant who told Fox News last week that she had a year-long affair with Condit and that the congressman's representatives asked her to sign a false affidavit last month, which she refused to do. Condit and his attorney both issued statements Tuesday denying that anyone had been told not to cooperate and saying that the affidavit in question was a draft subject to revision.
Law enforcement sources described yesterday's session with Carolyn Condit at the FBI office in Tysons Corner as productive and said she was helpful. One source familiar with her account to the FBI said she told authorities that she does not know Levy. She said she was in Washington from April 28 to May 3 primarily to attend a luncheon hosted by first lady Laura Bush. The source said Carolyn Condit was able to place her husband at work at certain times during the period she was in Washington.
Ein, the public relations specialist retained by Condit's team, has represented Democratic National Committee officials and the New Republic magazine, among others. She said the Levy case is similar to other matters she has handled.
"We're dealing with human beings and their lives and reputations here," she said.
"I think that we're all hopeful for a positive outcome," Ein said. "We have a young woman who's missing who we hope and pray can be found. We would like to see the media do everything possible to assist the police and focus on what is important here, which is Chandra Levy."
Staff writers Andrew DeMillo, Bill Miller and Sue Schmidt contributed to this report. Dvorak reported from Modesto.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
Condit's Wife Interviewed by Police
UPDATED - July 05, 2001 7:00pm
Reporter: Horace Holmes
Producer: Suleiman Wali
Washington
- The lawyer for Rep. Gary Condit has confirmed that the
congressman’s wife has been interviewed by law enforcement
officials, as the search goes on for Chandra Levy.
In a statement issued late Thursday afternoon, Abbe Lowell says
the meeting took place earlier in the day in the Washington area
(read full statement below). He was not specific
about the interview, but numerous broadcast reports say it
happened at an FBI field office in Tysons Corner, Va.
The statement did not reveal anything that was said and indicated
that Condit, D-Calif., will continue his public silence about
Levy.
"The congressman hopes and believes that the caring public
will not confuse his well-founded reasons for not fueling a
misguided media frenzy with his ... continued willingness to
speak with those professionals who are working day and night to
find Chandra Levy," the statement said.
The congressman has already been interviewed by police twice
before, concerning the Levy case. Lowell says Gary Condit
accompanied his wife to Washington, which is why he canceled his
appearances at a number of July Fourth events in his home
district of Modesto in California.
The congressman’s office has said that Carolyn
Condit—who is chronically ill and spends almost all her time
in California—was in Washington with her husband in late
April and early May, at the time of Levy’s disappearance.
_____ ABC7 Sound Bite _____
"We're not the sex police here. We're trying to investigate a missing person."
D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey
The statement also said Condit will
"resist efforts by the media to dissect and mischaracterize
his and his family's private lives."
Levy, 24, of Modesto, Calif., was last seen April 30 at a
Washington health club. Her internship at the U.S. Bureau of
Prisons had ended and she was planning to return home to attend
her graduation ceremony at the University of Southern California.
Condit's office has denied a romantic relationship between
Levy.
Earlier
Thursday, D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey said they believe it
is unlikely that the missing former federal intern killed
herself, because her body probably would have been found by now.
He also said investigators may want to talk again to Condit.
Ramsey said
police have few clues about Levy's disappearance more than two
months ago, but are focusing on one of two possibilities: that
Levy intended to vanish or someone harmed her.
"As time goes on, the possibility of suicide becomes more
and more remote, only because you think you would find the
remains," Ramsey said.
Ramsey
talked carefully about Condit, pointing out that he is "one
of 100 people we've talked to." Nonetheless, he said if
police have more questions for him, they would not hesitate to
talk to him a third time.
One of the people authorities have questioned about Condit is
Vince Flammini, a man who says he worked as a chauffeur for the
congressman for ten years in California. He said the FBI
asked him if Condit ever hit his wife or would be capable of
killing Levy. Flammini said Condit is not the type of
person who would do either.
Flammini, however, said he has information about Condit’s
relationship with 39-year-old flight attendant Anne Marie Smith,
who has said that she had a 10-month affair with Condit and that
Condit asked her to sign a form denying it.
One of Condit's lawyers said the form was sent to Smith last
month after an inquiry about their relationship from Star
magazine but that she wasn't urged to sign it. In a brief
statement Tuesday, Condit said: "I have not asked anyone to
refrain from discussing this matter with authorities, nor have I
suggested anyone mislead the authorities."
But Ramsey played down the relevance to the Levy investigation of
the allegations brought by Smith against Condit. "It's a
heck of a leap. ... We're not the sex police here. We're trying
to investigate a missing person," Ramsey said.
Condit's private life "only matters to me if it relates to
the Chandra Levy case," he said.
Condit, 53, has not spoken publicly about Levy, but has issued
several statements. In one he described Levy as a "great
person and a good friend."
Meanwhile, ABC News reports that a relative of Levy said the
missing woman had an affair with Condit and that the congressman
gave her a gold bracelet as a gift.
Condit's office has denied a romantic relationship between Levy
and the married congressman who has represented her hometown of
Modesto since 1989. Levy's mother Susan has said her daughter
told her she was seeing Condit. The New York Post reported
Levy’s parents are threatening to campaign against Condit,
if he runs for re-election.
Washington police say Condit is not a suspect in the
disappearance of Levy.
D.C. police confirmed Thursday that investigators with
cadaver-sniffing dogs were out on Wednesday, searching landfills
in the city. Ramsey said the search turned up nothing, but
that investigators will continue to search other landfills in the
area. Police said the search was conducted secretly to
avoid media attention.
Condit is highly popular in his central California district and
traditionally spends the Fourth of July there, waving to
supporters from the back of a parade convertible. But the
Democrat canceled appearances at three Independence Day parades
Wednesday—apparently to accompany his wife to D.C. to meet
with the FBI.
Parade organizers said they were told Condit feared his presence
would detract from the family atmosphere.
In an interview with The Associated Press at her Modesto home on
Wednesday, Susan Levy wouldn't discuss Condit or the private
conversation she had with him a week ago in Washington.
"It's awful. It's like a dream I want to be over," she
said.
During the interview, she received a call from Anne Marie Smith.
Susan Levy spoke only briefly with Smith, telling her she was a
"sweetheart."
"I thanked her for being brave and coming forward," she
said. She wouldn't comment further on the conversation.
Susan Levy didn't attend the Modesto parade Wednesday, but a
small group of people marched along the route holding up pictures
of the missing woman and waving fliers about her disappearance.
On the street where the Levys live, yellow ribbons flap from
mailboxes, lampposts and street signs.
Here in full is the statement issued on Thursday by Abbe
Lowell, attorney for Congressman Gary Condit:
"For
weeks, Congressman Condit has stated that he would assist the
police in their efforts to locate Chandra Levy.
Today,
the Congressman's wife, Carolyn, met with law enforcement
officials to provide whatever information she could. To expedite
this, Congressman Condit accompanied Mrs. Condit to the
Washington area in order to facilitate her meeting with
investigators and consequently was unable to participate in
traditional 4th of July events in Modesto.
Even
prior to Mrs. Condit's interview, Congressman Condit had given
two substantial interviews to the police and directed his staff
to provide information that may be requested of them.
In
light of the ongoing and central importance of the police
investigation, Congressman Condit has issued statements to the
press only when doing so would not interfere with the work of law
enforcement authorities. It is clear from a review of other
similar cases that broad and detailed dissemination of
confidential police interviews can seriously compromise police
investigations. With Chandra Levy's whereabouts unknown, this is
not a risk that Congressman Condit, or anyone else, should be
willing to take.
The
media's intense interest in Ms. Levy's disappearance is
completely understandable. Consequently, I have asked Marina Ein,
someone I know from the communications world, to assist me with
media inquiries. As the fierce competition to fill pages, airtime
and websites threatens to spin this story out of control,
Congressman Condit has resisted and will continue to resist
efforts by the media to dissect and mischaracterize his and his
family's private lives. Unlike some, Congressman Condit remains
singularly focused on what is and remains the central mission at
this time—locating Chandra Levy.
Congressman
Condit hopes and prays for Chandra Levy's safe return. It is his
belief that the media can play an important role in helping this
investigation reach a positive conclusion. It is also his belief
that the media risks losing its focus with what has been a recent
and seemingly unbounded effort to expose highly personal and
private Condit family matters. None of these matters pertain to
Ms. Levy's disappearance or the ability of law enforcement to
determine what has happened to her. To all of you, I ask that you
return your focus to that priority.
In
summary, Congressman Condit has twice met with the police,
followed up with the police by telephone, and reached out to meet
and speak with Chandra Levy's family. In addition, Congressman
Condit's wife has herself met with the police.
The
police have stated that Congressman Condit is not a suspect, that
he has been cooperative and that his meetings with them have been
productive. These are their words.
The
Congressman hopes and believes that the caring public will not
confuse his well-founded reasons for not fueling a misguided
media frenzy, with his, Mrs. Condit's, and his staff's continued
willingness to speak with those professionals who are working day
and night to find Chandra Levy."
Grand jury to tackle missing intern case
PROBE: Congressman may be questioned(Just for your information: this report by the San Francisco Chronicle turned out to be phony. It was made up by the reporters cited below after they didn't confirm the information before press time, Bob's note)
Stacy Finz, Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writers
Saturday, July 7, 2001
©2001 San Francisco ChronicleURL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/07/07/MN179611.DTL
A federal grand jury will investigate the disappearance of missing Washington intern Chandra Levy, authorities told The Chronicle yesterday.
The grand jury is expected to call Rep. Gary Condit, D-Ceres, and members of his staff to testify about the congressman's relationship with Levy, law enforcement sources said. The sources asked not to be named because of prohibitions against discussing grand jury proceedings.
Although Condit is not a suspect in the Modesto woman's disappearance, Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer said, "We need further clarity from him." Gainer declined to elaborate.
The grand jury will allow Washington police and the FBI to subpoena any records that may possibly be relevant to the case, including Condit's cellular phone bills, to learn the degree of communication between the congressman and 24-year-old Levy, who was last seen on April 30 at her neighborhood gym.
Condit's staff has said the congressman has fully cooperated with police. As of late yesterday, neither the Levy family nor a public relations specialist hired by Condit's lawyer knew anything about the grand jury. Billy Martin, the Levy family attorney, and Abbe Lowell, Condit's attorney, could not be reached for comment.
The federal grand jury has wide authority to compel testimony from reluctant witnesses and subpoena documents that might otherwise be difficult for police to obtain without sufficient evidence that a crime has occurred.
Police say they are treating the Levy investigation as a missing-person case and that there is not enough evidence to prove that a crime has occurred.
In the meantime, the Levy family has begun lashing out at the 53-year-old congressman.
"The Levy family is frustrated and outraged that Congressman Gary Condit and his associates have mischaracterized Chandra Levy's relationship with the congressman," Levy's aunt, Linda Zamsky, wrote in a statement released yesterday. "From my many conversations with her, it was clear, without a doubt,
that they were involved in an intimate relationship."
Zamsky said she wanted to set the record straight about the relationship between Condit and her niece. She said that a day or two before vanishing, her niece had left a message on her answering machine saying she had big news. Zamsky never heard from her again.
"She was upbeat and full of life," Zamsky said of the recorded message. "There was absolutely no indication that she was upset."
Levy's family does not believe the young intern committed suicide -- an early theory that investigators have just about ruled out.
Zamsky implored the congressman, who has represented her niece's hometown of Modesto and the surrounding areas since 1989, to cooperate with authorities.
Condit and his political aides have repeatedly denied allegations that he and Levy were romantically involved, calling her just "a good friend."
"We believe that Rep. Condit's lack of candor is hindering efforts to find Chandra," Zamsky wrote. "We call on him to do what he would want others to do if one of his children were missing -- give a complete account of his relationship with Chandra, what he knows about her whereabouts on the days leading up to her disappearance and any information he may have that can help investigators."
Marina Ein, a public relations specialist hired by Condit's attorney, said the congressman has fully cooperated with authorities and has told them everything they need to know.
"But his position from the beginning has been that he's not going to talk about his private life with the press," she said. "They do not believe that making public statements on this subject, or attending media events, will do anything positive or constructive in the effort to locate Chandra."
Zamsky, who met Levy's uncle eight years ago, said she became close to her niece almost instantly. While growing up, Levy told her about her boyfriends, school and "just what was going on in her life."
Even though Zamsky, 40, lived in Maryland and Levy lived in California, the two would get together and talk at family functions. And when Levy moved to Washington to intern for the Bureau of Prisons last fall, the two women grew even closer.
Zamsky said that when her niece visited her during Thanksgiving, she told her that she had been having an affair with a married man for four to six weeks. Levy, according to Zamsky, told her aunt that she had been sworn to secrecy about the relationship but eventually blurted out that her lover was Condit.
Zamsky said her niece described in detail some of their bedroom encounters.
"Obviously, I was one of the few people that she could talk to about this, so I wanted her to feel comfortable," she said.
Zamsky said on one occasion when Levy had come to the house she noticed her uncle's Harley Davidson parked in the garage and commented, "Oh, my guy drives a bike, too."
Zamsky asked her if her boyfriend's motorcycle was also a Harley.
Levy answered, "Yeah, it's great." But the bike, she said, was at home in California.
When Zamsky invited her niece to bring her boyfriend to the house to go motorcycle riding, Levy said it would never happen.
Zamsky said Levy told her, "He wouldn't want to be seen," she said. "Paul (Levy's uncle) might know him or you might -- you know, it's just that's not something he would do."
E-mail the writers at sfinz@sfchronicle.com and jzamora@sfchronicle.com.
©2001 WJLA-TV. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Condit tells police of affair with Levy
July 7 — Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., has told investigators that he had a long-term intimate relationship with Chandra Levy, the 24-year-old former federal intern who has not been seen since late April, high-ranking police officials told NBC News on Saturday
NBC’S NORAH O’DONNELL reported Saturday that Washington police met with Condit for the third time late Friday and that he had acknowledged an intimate affair. Condit, 53, previously had described Levy only as a “good friend.”
Newsweek, quoting law enforcement sources, and The Washington Post, citing “sources familiar with Condit’s account,” reported late Saturday that Condit told police the relationship was still ongoing at the time of Levy’s disappearance more than two months ago.
Terrance Gainer, the D.C. police department’s No. 2 official, confirmed that Condit had met with investigators for 1½ hours Friday night and said Condit “answered every question that we put to him. He clarified those issues that we needed some more information about.”
“We were comfortable with his answers,” said Gainer, who would not discuss the nature of what Condit said.
Gainer repeated that Levy’s disappearance was a missing persons case, not a criminal investigation, and that Condit was not under suspicion.
“He was not a suspect before the meeting, he was not a suspect during the meeting and he is not a suspect after the meeting,” Gainer said.However, Condit’s interview “does not lead us any closer to finding where Miss Chandra Ann Levy is,” said Gainer, who said police were still considering the “remote” possibility that she had committed suicide or had decided to disappear on her own.
PHONE RECORDS SOUGHT
The development came as NBC News reported Saturday that in addition to having questioned Condit for a third time, police planned to seek a subpoena allowing them to review his cell phone records. Police have already used a sitting federal grand jury in Washington to obtain Levy’s telephone and e-mail records, which is standard practice in such investigations.
The investigation has focused recently on car rental and other transportation records. In addition, police have been searching Washington landfills.
Police also have interviewed Carolyn Condit, the congressman’s wife, but she provided nothing “instructive,” an official said. Until Gary Condit spoke with them for the third time, police had turned up no new leads.
Levy’s parents, Robert and Susan Levy, were seen Saturday evening returning to and leaving their home in Modesto, Calif. A note on the door of their house said they would not be commenting. A sheriff’s official could be seen inside the house, watching television.NO NEW GRAND JURY
The San Francisco Chronicle, citing unnamed sources, reported Saturday that a new federal grand jury would be impaneled and was expected to call Condit and aides to testify about his relationship with Levy.
POLL: VOTERS WANT MORE
Like all members of the House, Condit faces re-election next year. A poll released Friday by NBC News/Zogby International found that a majority of likely voters in his home district wanted him to publicly discuss his relationship with the missing intern.
In an interview with Fox News before the NBC and Newsweek reports Saturday, Rep. Tom Davis, chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, would not address what impact Condit’s situation might have on his re-election or on Republican prospects to win his seat.
But Davis, R-Va., said Republican strategists were “ready for any eventuality.”
NBC’s Norah O’Donnell, Andrea Mitchell and Shane Nicholson and MSNBC.com’s Alex Johnson contributed to this report.MSNBC Terms,Conditions and Privacy © 2001
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN JULY 08, 2001 16:09:28 ET XXXXX
CONDIT STAFFER CHARGES: 'I WAS LIED TO!'; RESIGNATION TALK SWIRLS AROUND CONGRESSMAN
**Exclusive**
Resignation talk swirls around California Congressman Gary Condit on Sunday, just as his own staff begins to question the representative's truthfulness.
MORE
"Point blank, I was lied to!" a Condit staffer told the DRUDGE REPORT. "I was assured there was no love affair with Ms. Levy, I've put my reputation on the line defending him around here, and now this comes out!"
The Condit staffer reached out to the DRUDGE REPORT and spoke on strict condition of anonymity after Condit admitted to investigators that he did have an affair with missing intern Chandra Levy.
"I have one question, and I know this will very well would mean I would lose my job, 'Gary, when are you going to step down, resign?!'"
Hill talk has quickly turned to whether Condit can continue to represent his district with the deepening Levy developments.
Staff disillusionment centers on Condit's actions after the WASHINGTON POST last month first revealed Levy had slept at the congressman's apartment and that the two were romantically involved.
Condit hired San Francisco power attorney Joseph Cotchett, who rushed a letter to the POST and other outlets demanding a retraction or risk a libel suit.
During on and off the record conversations with reporters over the past 60 days, Condit's staff repeatedly denied the congressman had any romantic relationship with the former Bureau of Prisons intern.
According to insiders, Condit misled Mike Lynch, chief of staff in Condit's Modesto office, and Mike Dayton, a spokesman at the congressman's office on Capitol Hill.
Dayton was told to tell the press "there is nothing to hide" about Condit's relationship with Levy, say sources.
Condit's public deception also involved his wife.
In a brief telephone conversation with the ASSOCIATED PRESS in June, Carolyn Condit said her husband's relationship with the Levy family and Chandra was a "friendship."
"I hope for his sake, she got a full apology this weekend, I sure haven't," said the disgruntled Condit staffer.
Sitting calmly in the offices of his lawyer with investigators late Friday night, Condit admitted to being romantically involved with Chandra.
Law enforcement sources tell NEWSWEEK in its July 16 issue that Condit was "apologetic" for not responding more completely in his first two encounters with police.
He told investigators that his previous answers were the natural reaction of a married man reluctant to admit an extramarital dalliance.
Developing...
-----------------------------------------------------------
Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2001
Not for reproduction without permission of the authorPolice probe Condit in Levy case
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 11, 2001
By Jim Keary and John Drake
Authorities are investigating Rep. Gary A. Condit on charges of witness tampering and suborning perjury in trying to persuade a flight attendant to deny their affair in the Chandra Levy investigation, a law enforcement source told The Washington Times. Mr. Condit, 53, has not been formally charged with a crime, and police have said he is not a suspect in Miss Levy's disappearance, which is being investigated as a missing-persons case -- a noncriminal matter. But authorities suspect the California Democrat tried to persuade a flight attendant to lie about their affair to investigators searching for the missing intern.
"They want to get at the issue about the statements about being approached and asked about signing the affidavit denying an affair," a law enforcement source said. "They want to look at the whole appropriateness of it and see whether there is witness intimidation or suborning of perjury."
Anne Marie Smith, a United Airlines flight attendant who said she had an affair with the married Mr. Condit, last week said an attorney for Mr. Condit urged her to sign a sworn statement denying the affair. Miss Smith, 39, was expected to arrive in the District last night to be interviewed by investigators at the U.S. Attorney's Office today.
Meanwhile, Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey yesterday said police investigators will accept an offer by Mr. Condit's attorney, Abbe Lowell, to conduct a lie-detector test on the congressman, take DNA samples, interview his staff and search his Adams Morgan apartment without a search warrant.
"When an offer like this is made, we need to do the responsible thing and follow up on that offer," Chief Ramsey said during a news conference outside police headquarters. "The Levy family has a right to have these questions answered once and for all."
Last night, D.C. police officers entered the back of Mr. Condit's apartment in the 2600 block of Adams Mill Road NW. Mr. Condit was reportedly home during the search.
The chief dismissed suggestions that police have waited too long to search the apartment, saying most forensic evidence can be detected years after an incident.
Chief Ramsey said he expects to have the details worked out for the lie-detector test and DNA samples "within a day or two, at the maximum."
Mr. Condit, whose district includes Miss Levy's hometown of Modesto, Calif., on Friday told investigators he had had an affair with the 24-year-old intern after having denied a romantic relationship since she was reported missing in early May, according to a law enforcement source.
Billy Martin, the lawyer hired by Miss Levy's parents to investigate her disappearance, yesterday said he is "very pleased" police will conduct a lie-detector test on Mr. Condit and search his apartment, adding that the Levys have been "going through a living hell."
Chief Ramsey and Monty Wilkinson, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said they could not comment about Miss Smith's interview. Mr. Wilkinson also said he could not comment about the Levy investigation, which is separate from the probe of Miss Smith's charges.
Marina Ein, a publicist retained by Mr. Condit and Mr. Lowell, said she could not comment on a federal investigation of Mr. Condit. "I have no information to that effect. I can't confirm it," she told The Times.
Mr. Condit last week issued a statement saying he has not "asked anyone to refrain from discussing this matter with authorities, nor have I suggested anyone mislead the authorities." He did not dispute Miss Smith's account of their 10-month relationship.
In addition, the D.C. law firm of Cotchett, Pitre and Simon issued a statement disputing Miss Smith's account, saying it e-mailed a "draft" statement to Jim Robinson, her attorney in Seattle, to clarify her relationship with the congressman following a tabloid magazine report about the matter.
Mr. Robinson was to review the draft statement and "edit, cut, suggest, etc." changes before having Miss Smith sign it, the law firm statement reads.
One part of the statement would have Miss Smith, under penalty of perjury, deny having had a "relationship with Congressman Condit other than being acquainted with him. I do not have and have not had a romantic relationship with Congressman Condit."
When she is interviewed by police detectives, Miss Smith also is expected to give a statement about what she saw inside Mr. Condit's apartment when she was there in April, Mr. Robinson told The Times yesterday. Miss Levy was last seen in the District on April 30.
Mr. Robinson said Miss Smith was in the apartment before Miss Levy's disappearance and found several long hairs that looked like Miss Levy's and neckties wrapped around the metal frame of Mr. Condit's bed.
"I'm sure they want to talk to her about what she saw," he said.
Yesterday, a horde of reporters, photographers and camera operators staked out Mr. Condit's condominium in the 2600 block of Adams Mill Road NW, which the congressman quickly left, and got into a waiting Ford Escort to avoid questions.
"It's slightly overblown. But I find it kind of amusing," condo resident Kevin Lee, 29, said of the media attention.
Mr. Lee said many of the building's residents are upset because "reporters are coming in and roaming around."
Many passers-by watched the frenzy and debated among themselves what happened to Miss Levy. Police have ruled out suicide, saying she disappeared voluntarily or met with foul play.
• Janine A. Zeitlin contributed to this report.All site contents copyright © 2001 News World Communications, Inc.
CONDIT 'KINKY SEX'
July 10, 2001
By NILES LATHEM and KATE SHEEHYThe flight attendant who says she and Rep. Gary Condit were lovers has told cops that before Chandra Levy disappeared, the congressman appeared to be engaging in bizarre, kinky sex with someone.
"There were neckties tied together underneath [Condit's] bed as if someone had been tied up in bed," flame-haired stewardess Anne Marie Smith said, according to her attorney.
Lawyer Jim Robinson, in an interview aired last night on the Fox News Channel, added, "She also told me that Condit had some peculiar sexual fantasies that a normal heterosexual male would not have.
"Near the end of their relationship, things started to disturb Anne Marie," he said.
"She saw other things of a sexual nature that she would have nothing to do with, and then this woman [Levy] disappears. She was terrified . . .
"She was very afraid for her life at this point."
The chilling report came as police probers refused to rule out the possibility that Condit had something to do with Levy's disappearance.
D.C. Executive Assistant Police Chief Charles Gainer said cops plan to search Condit's apartment - taking him up on an offer made yesterday by his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, to cooperate fully, even with a police search.
Police Chief Charles Ramsey added that conducting a lie-detector test on Condit is not out of the question.
"Nothing can be ruled out now . . . [because] you know that until that question of what happened to her [is answered] and we find her one way or the other, we're going to have to continue to trace and retrace steps," Ramsey said.
Levy's distraught parents have been demanding that the married 53-year-old California congressman - who only recently admitted to having an affair with the 24-year-old intern - submit to a lie-detector exam.
A drained Susan Levy, Chandra's mom, urged Condit to take the polygraph test, "to help us find our daughter and bring her home back to us alive."
Apparently referring to Condit's denial of an affair in a phone call immediately after Levy's disappearance, the mother said, "There are certain things Mr. Condit did not come forth . . . I caught him in a specific lie . . . I don't feel he's been very truthful to me."
The Levys' lawyer, Billy Martin, said on CNN's "Larry King Live" last night that the parents want the polygraph because "they have no confidence in the word of Congressman Condit. His credibility is suspect, and they just want some assurance that now he's telling the truth. When it began, he did not."
Lowell said he would be "willing to discuss" a polygraph test for Condit, although earlier in the day, he said, "Basically, there's no need for it."
The Levy family has claimed there are several serious discrepancies in Condit's story:
* Condit told Mrs. Levy when they met last month that he last spoke to her daughter April 24 or 25. He later told cops that the time he spoke to her was April 29. She disappeared April 30.
* When Mrs. Levy first talked to Condit, seeking help finding Chandra, she'd asked him about the nature of relationship, and he told her it was professional. But Friday, he came clean to probers and confessed it was sexual.
* Condit has insisted he was not aware of anything that would cause her to go missing. But Chandra's aunt said she got a phone message from the young intern the day before she disappeared, telling her, "I really have some big news or something important to tell. Call me."
NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COM
are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.
Copyright 2001 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
Why have we've now extended the ban against stating a moral objection not just to strangers but to family as well?
Jewish World Review July 10, 2001 /19 Tamuz, 5761
Linda Chavezhttp://www.jewishworldreview.com -- FOR weeks, I've avoided the Chandra Levy story, reading almost nothing about the missing intern who disappeared in Washington, D.C., April 30, the day before she was to return home to receive her master's degree from the University of Southern California. I've avoided all the sleazy speculation about whether Congressman Gary Condit D-Calif.) was having an affair with the 25-year-old woman or whether he might be involved in her disappearance, switching channels when news reports came on or simply skipping the newspaper articles.
There are more than 443 active missing persons cases in Washington alone since the beginning of the year, and tens of thousands nationwide. It hasn't made sense to me why this one deserves so much more attention than the others. Chandra Levy's disappearance is an enormous personal tragedy for Miss Levy's family. But the story didn't seem to me to have much more than voyeuristic relevance for the rest of us. I've now changed my mind.
It happened when Miss Levy's aunt decided to go public with accusations that her niece had told her she was having an affair with the 53-year-old, married congressman. Suddenly I was curious -- no, outraged. "You mean this young woman confided in an adult family member that she was having an affair with a man twice her age, who happened not only to be a member of Congress, but married as well, and this aunt did nothing to try to stop it?" I fumed to my friend. It was Monica Lewinsky all over again -- a young, impressionable woman involved with a powerful, married man, confiding in a sympathetic, adult family member (in Monica's case, her mother) who thought it best to remain non-judgmental.
Now, this is a story for our times. One that says something about what kind of society we've become, what our obligations to family members are, and what our values are. Unfortunately, no one seems interested in pursuing this particular storyline -- which is hardly surprising, since doing so might require making some judgments along the way.
We may never know whether Chandra Levy's affair with a married congressman (which he has now admitted to the police) had anything to do with her mysterious disappearance. One thing is clear: This young woman -- described by friends as "a cool cookie, very sophisticated, very directed and strong" -- was involved in an exploitive, destructive relationship that could only hurt her and others as well. Somebody needed to tell her that. It appears no one did.
The relationship between a married politician and a Washington intern is none of our business. We've heard this mantra since the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. And by repeating it often enough, we're led to believe that we must suspend judgment about such relationships as well. The whole thing is downright creepy. We know such behavior is wrong, but we can't say so. That would make us judgmental -- and there's no worse crime in our value-free society.
Worse, we've now extended the ban against stating a moral objection not just to strangers but to family as well. How many parents today are afraid to tell their children that they don't approve of their behavior, especially if the kids happen to be young adults? We might lose our kids' confidence and friendship. Better they talk to us than keep things secret, which they surely would if we were actually to voice our disapproval.
But what is the point? Isn't the whole reason parents want their children's confidence in the first place so that they can provide them with proper guidance?
Maybe nothing could have saved Chandra Levy from disappearing. But her parents certainly had the right to know that their daughter was involved in a risky, damaging relationship with an unscrupulous, powerful, older man. My bet is, they wish now they had been able to intervene.
Making judgments is what being a parent is all about, especially when it comes to the welfare of our children.
© 2000, Creators Syndicate
SPOTS IN HIS APARTMENT COULD BE BLOOD
July 12, 2001
By NILES LATHEM and ANDY GELLERDetectives probing Chandra Levy's disappearance found massage oils, a long, brown hair - and two mysterious spots that could be blood - in Rep. Gary Condit's Washington apartment, police sources said last night.
The sources said the hair did not come from the married California Democrat, who admitted having an affair with Levy, an attractive 24-year-old brunette who vanished May 1.
The hair was sent to the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Va., for further testing, as was a Venetian blind slat that had the spots, the sources said.
The discoveries were revealed as Anne Marie Smith, a flight attendant who claims Condit was her lover for 10 months, and her lawyer accused the congressman of hiding information about the missing intern.
"Mr. Condit is hiding a whole lot of other things besides his extramarital affairs," said the lawyer, James Robinson, adding that his client "is more afraid of him than ever."
Cops using high-tech equipment searched Condit's apartment for three hours, beginning shortly before midnight Tuesday and ending about 3 a.m.
In addition to the hair, the massage oils and the Venetian blind slat, cops also seized a carpet sample, a bathroom canister and clothing. All but the massage oils were sent to Quantico.
Meanwhile, detectives, FBI agents and federal prosecutors spent seven hours interviewing Smith, who says Condit asked her to sign an affidavit denying they had been lovers.
Afterward, the flame-haired Smith told the Fox News Channel that Condit said it was OK to sign the affidavit because "the case will never go to trial."
"Clearly, asking me to sign the affidavit kind of put a shadow on his credibility," she said.
Smith, 39, who returns for more questioning today, was asked if she thought other affidavits existed from women with whom Condit may have been involved.
"I have a feeling there are a few floating around," she said.
Smith said she believes Condit has not come clean about Levy.
"I think there's a lot more that he knows that he's not telling," she told Fox News Channel.
Robinson, speaking later, accused Condit of living a clandestine life - "hiding how he gets around Washington, how he gets around California."
Asked if investigators hadn't asked the congressmen about this, the lawyer replied, "From the reactions of the people in the room when my client answered the simplest of questions, they've asked him."
Robinson added, "As far as I'm concerned, they consider him a suspect."
Chandra, who had just completed a six-month internship with the Bureau of Prisons, disappeared after telling her parents she was returning home to Modesto, Calif.
Meanwhile, People magazine reports that Chandra's anguished parents reached out to a psychic who said their missing daughter is alive.
NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COM
are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.
Copyright 2001 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Washington Times
www.washtimes.com
Police search Condit's apartment
John Drake and Janine A. Zeitlin
THE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished 7/12/01
Investigators in the Chandra Levy case yesterday found no signs of a struggle or any obvious incriminating evidence in an early morning search of Rep. Gary A. Condit's apartment, which had been cleaned beforehand, law enforcement sources told The Washington Times.
D.C. police and FBI agents did not expect to find anything that would make or break the missing persons case, and the key data will arrive in two to four weeks when experts conclude DNA tests on blood and other evidence recovered from the California Democrat's Adams Morgan apartment, the sources said.
During a four-hour search of Mr. Condit's fourth-floor apartment in the 2600 block of Adams Mill Road NW, crime-scene technicians took samples from one drop of blood in plain sight in the bathroom and from specks detected with special equipment in the living room, one source said.
The sources characterized the blood as "very minimal" or the size of "pin drops."
One law enforcement source remarked on the absence of a computer in the apartment and the cleanliness of the residence. "It has been cleaned all over and was pretty neat," the source said.
Mr. Condit, 53, and his wife, Carolyn, were present, and both were polite and kept mostly to themselves, a law enforcement source said, adding that they appeared challenged the search team and refused to let them take a pair of pants that had a red stain.
Mr. Lowell became angry when one technician -- in an episode broadcast on television -- cut a piece out of the venetian blinds because of specks "that might possibly be blood," the source said.
Investigators conducted the search without a warrant early yesterday after accepting Mr. Lowell's offer on Wednesday to examine Mr. Condit's apartment, conduct a lie-detector test on the congressman, collect DNA samples and interview his Capitol Hill staff.
Police have not charged Mr. Condit with a crime and have said he is not a suspect in Miss Levy's disappearance.
Meanwhile yesterday, flight attendant Anne Marie Smith met with federal prosecutors and FBI agents at the agency's Washington Field Office as part of a probe into whether Mr. Condit tampered with a witness or suborned perjury in his dealings with her.
Miss Smith, 39, last week said Mr. Condit urged her not to talk with the FBI and his representatives tried to persuade her to sign a false affidavit denying their 10-month affair. Mr. Condit and his attorneys have disputed her assertions.
A spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington Field Office yesterday confirmed that Miss Smith was at the building, but she said she could not provide any other details. Miss Smith left the building by a rear exit about 2 p.m., avoiding a phalanx of reporters.
Police and FBI officials have refused to discuss details of the case, and would not say what was recovered from Mr. Condit's apartment.
The forensic search team yesterday concentrated on finding blood -- which could indicate foul play -- and not semen or hair samples, the law enforcement sources said, adding that one black hair about three to four inches long was found. No semen was discovered, one source said.
The evidence was to be sent to the FBI's forensic lab yesterday or today, and DNA results could be available as early as two weeks, a source said. "None of this means anything unless there's a match," the source said.
Detectives will check the DNA results from the apartment against that of Mr. Condit, Miss Levy, her parents and others involved with the case.
Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer yesterday said he and other police officials are working with Mr. Lowell on the details of conducting a lie-detector test on Mr. Condit and collecting DNA samples from him.
Mr. Condit, whose district includes Miss Levy's hometown of Modesto, Calif., consented to the search after pressure mounted from police and Miss Levy's parents over his lack of cooperation.
Mr. Lowell set several conditions for authorities to search the apartment, a law enforcement source said. Investigators had to wear plainclothes and not bring the Mobile Crime Lab's large truck, instead using less-conspicuous vehicles so as not to further sully the congressman's image.
Billy Martin, the attorney for the Levy family, said they have asked for Mr. Condit to undergo a lie-detector test without any conditions. He said he has written to Mr. Lowell asking that Mr. Condit take the test but has not received a response.
"Once again the matter is, he is saying he is cooperating," Mr. Martin said. "When we asked for one there were no conditions placed on it. Now it is up to the congressman to speak up and tell the complete truth."
Marina Ein, a spokeswoman for Mr. Lowell, did not return a telephone message from The Washington Times asking why Mr. Condit has not yet submitted to a lie-detector test.
D.C. police want FBI polygraph experts to administer the test. They want to ask Mr. Condit a variety of questions but are seeking detailed answers about his relationship with Miss Levy, the last time and place he saw her, and her state of mind, according to law enforcement sources.
Authorities also want to check his replies against his answers in previous interviews, the sources said. But Mr. Lowell is trying to set a list of limited questions Mr. Condit will answer, sources familiar with the ongoing negotiations told The Times.
Mr. Condit admitted to investigators Friday that he had had an affair with Miss Levy after having denied a romantic relationship since she was reported missing in early May, according to police sources. Miss Levy, who interned at the Bureau of Prisons, was last seen April 30.
Tuesday night, authorities tried to dodge the media when they went to Mr. Condit's apartment, waiting until 11:15 p.m. -- too late for most news broadcasts -- to enter. The search team included one FBI agent, one police detective and four crime-scene technicians -- three officers and one sergeant -- from the department's mobile crime lab.
Around 2:15 a.m. yesterday, officials turned off the overhead lights in the congressman's apartment and began using ultraviolet-light technology that picks up the natural fluorescence of bodily fluids like semen and blood.
The forensic experts, dressed in polo shirts and T-shirts, looked sweaty and tired as they emerged from the building. They returned with only a few things. They unloaded three medium-sized metal briefcases, three plastic cases that looked like oversize tackle boxes, a one-gallon water jug, a small plastic grocery bag, a small paper bag, a box of plastic gloves, and a stack of flat items wrapped in brown paper into one of the car's trunks.
* Jim Keary, M. Douglas O'Malley and Jerry Seper contributed to this report.Copyright © 2001 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Minister Says Daughter, at 18, Had an Affair With Condit
By Petula Dvorak and Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 12, 2001; Page A01FBI agents looking into the disappearance of Chandra Levy have approached and interviewed a Pentecostal minister who described an affair between his then-18-year-old daughter and Rep. Gary A. Condit, telling investigators that the congressman had warned her never to speak of the relationship.
Four law enforcement sources confirmed that the father, Otis Thomas, has been questioned by the FBI and that investigators are interested in talking to his daughter. Thomas, in an interview in which he described what his daughter told him of the affair, said that he has encouraged her to talk to the FBI but that she is afraid to do so and has gone into hiding.
Thomas said the relationship took place about seven years ago and that it ended in a tense breakup initiated by his daughter. Thomas said he decided to describe his daughter's account to FBI agent Todd M. Irinaga because he learned that the relationship was discussed by Levy and Condit in April, about two weeks before the 24-year-old intern was last seen.
Thomas's daughter, who is now in her mid-twenties, declined to discuss any aspect of the case. "I don't want to talk about any of that," she said in a brief telephone conversation this week.
Marina Ein, a spokesman for the Democratic congressman from California, yesterday accused The Washington Post of joining "the ranks of tabloids who have come to us with specious questions about a supposed affair."
"These questions are destructive, unfair and irrelevant," Ein said. "In fact, we are constantly placed in the impossible position of having to prove a negative. This is something we will not do."
Condit's attorney, Abbe D. Lowell, said, "This is beneath the dignity of The Washington Post."
Thomas's account of his daughter's affair with Condit has been known to the Levy family since mid-April, before Chandra disappeared. By then, the Levy family knew Chandra was having a relationship with the congressman, according to family members.
Thomas, who has parlayed his weekend groundskeeping at his Modesto, Calif., church into a weekday freelance gardening business, has done work at the Levy home for about four years. He had a conversation with Chandra's mother, Susan Levy, in April while he was tending roses in the back yard. The conversation continued by the pool, where Susan Levy brought him a cold drink. The two often talked about their children, and Thomas said he asked Susan Levy how Chandra was doing in Washington.
Susan Levy replied that Chandra was doing well and that she had befriended a congressman, Gary Condit.
"Mrs. Levy asked me if I know Gary Condit and asked me what I think about him," Thomas said. "She said she was asking about him because her daughter was friends with him in Washington."
Thomas said he remembered that his daughter had asked him for advice about seven years ago, when she wanted to break off a bad relationship. He said he had been shocked when she told him the man she was seeing was Condit, whom she said she met at a political rally.
"Lord have mercy, I told her she has to be around men her own age," Thomas said.
He said he advised her to end the liaison immediately. She did so, and the two never spoke of it again, he said. "I didn't really think much about it since then, until Mrs. Levy asked me about him," Thomas said.
At the Levy house that day, Thomas said he and Susan Levy talked about Condit, gingerly at first. "Then Mrs. Levy asked me if I've ever heard anything about him and other women," Thomas said. The two eventually confessed to one another that both their daughters had relationships with Condit. "I told Mrs. Levy that with my daughter, it ended badly, that I think her daughter should end the relationship with him right away," Thomas said.
He remembers that Susan Levy then got on the phone and called Chandra in Washington. He said he heard the mother argue with her daughter. "Mrs. Levy talked to Chandra about it, but Chandra told her mother to mind her own business, that she was a grown woman who could deal with it," Thomas said.
Susan Levy confirmed that she had the conversation with Thomas and said she had sparred with her daughter about the relationship with Condit over the phone. In mid-April, when the Levys were in the Washington area to celebrate their daughter's birthday, Chandra Levy told her mother that she had talked to Condit about the affair described by Thomas and that the congressman had "explained it all" to her, Susan Levy said.
About two weeks later, on April 30, Chandra Levy canceled the membership at her Washington health club. She has not been seen since.
In May, when Thomas and his daughter saw news accounts of Levy's disappearance, he said his daughter became upset. She told him that Condit had warned her after the breakup not to tell anyone about the relationship, Thomas said.
After Chandra disappeared, Susan Levy said she asked Thomas specific questions about the relationship between Condit and his daughter, which he provided. The Levys notified the FBI, which then approached Thomas.
The Washington Post first contacted Thomas in mid-May, when a Levy relative first described what he knew. Since then, the Levys have hired attorney Billy Martin and the Washington public relations firm Porter Novelli. The Post has interviewed Thomas on many occasions, but only this week did he agree to go on the record with his story.
He made the decision after several news organizations learned about his role in the Levy investigation. On Monday, camera crews and print reporters approached Thomas, who declined to be interviewed.
Thomas, 54, said he is revealing what he told the FBI because of media pressure and because of his desire to help find Chandra Levy.
"I'm just trying to do the right thing for the Levys, and I wanted to answer all the questions the FBI had," Thomas said. "I don't want to drag my family into this. But I want to tell the truth about everything I know."
Staff writers Sari Horwitz and Sue Schmidt, research editor Margot Williams and Metro researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report. Dvorak reported from Modesto.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
Friday, July 13, 2001
Most Curious Note of the Week"I never met that congressman who's involved in all this. I don't even have an interest in politics as it is. Mrs. Levy's daughter and I were never friends in school or anywhere else. I don't even know if we went to the same school or something together. I don't know the family personally. I never met Mrs. Levy until she showed up at my father's house looking for me. I don't even know how both me and my father got mixed up in this. We don't know anything so stop calling us and showing up at our door."
Note signed by Jennifer Thomas was taped to the door of her home after her father told the press she had an affair with Condit when she was l8 years old.
Yet More Curiosities.....
Mr. Condit, 53, and his wife, Carolyn, were present, and both were polite and kept mostly to themselves, a law enforcement source said, adding that they appeared tired. The source said Mr. Condit's attorney, Abbe Lowell, repeatedly challenged the search team and refused to let them take a pair of pants that had a red stain.
Buried lead in Washington Times story about the search of Condit's apartment.
LDotNote: One of Condit's former "girlfriends" (we've got to come up with a better name for these women as there is going to be a lot of them) now works for ABC-TV in Washington. She was formerly employed by former Cabinetweasel Bill Richardson who, if your memory is as good as ours, was dispatched to the Watergate apartment paid for with U.S. dollars to offer Monica a hush-yo-mouth job. Look for one of the major tabs to provide the first truly comprehensive list of "Condit's Women" soon.
Your Eager LComStaff
© 2000 Lucianne.com Media Inc.
NewsMax.com
Thursday, July 12, 2001 2:20 a.m. EDT
Condit Refused to Turn Over Pants With Red Mystery Stain
California congressman Gary Condit refused to give Washington, D.C., police a clothing item reportedly stained with an unidentified red-colored substance uncovered during a search of his apartment early Wednesday.
"Mr. Condit, 53, and his wife, Carolyn, were present, and both were polite and kept mostly to themselves," a law enforcement source told the Washington Times Thursday.
But the source added that the couple "refused to let them take a pair of pants that had a red stain."
Additionally, Condit's attorney Abbe Lowell reportedly grew upset when the D.C. police search team discovered what appeared to be specks of blood in the living room.
"Mr. Lowell became angry when one technician - in an episode broadcast on television - cut a piece out of the venetian blinds because of specks 'that might possibly be blood,'" the source told the Times.
A drop of blood was also discovered on the floor of Condit's bathroom.
The FBI lab is reportedly conducting DNA tests on the blood samples, which are expected to take at least two weeks.
All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THURS JULY 12, 2001 15:49:00 ET XXXXX
NATIONAL ENQUIRER: CHANDRA LEVY WAS PREGNANT; HER COMPUTER, CELL PHONE WERE USED DAY AFTER SHE WENT MISSING
The NATIONAL ENQUIRER is reporting in its July 24 edition set to hit newstands on Friday that missing intern Chandra Levy was pregnant with Congressman Gary Condit's baby!
"Authorities have information that Chandra told at least one friend that she was pregnant -- and she said the baby was Condit's," a source close to the investigation disclosed to the ENQUIRER.
The ENQUIRER cites a Justice Department source:
"A friend told investigators Chandra said she was pregnant. The FBI and Washington D.C. police have subpoenaed her medical records. One investigator told me: 'We believe Levy was pregnant!'
The source also added, "The FBI does believe her disappearance is a 'love crime.'"
The ENQUIRER quotes a source who says that at least 5 women who were romantically involved with Condit are now afraid of him, and are keeping a low profile.
The ENQUIRER quotes a cousin of Chandra's, Michael Maistelman, who says that stewardess and former Condit lover Anne Marie Smiths's accounts of being followed "closely parallel" those told by Jennifer Baker, a former Condit intern and the person who introduced Levy to the congressman.
"Jennifer is getting the same kind of phone calls and is convinced she's being followed," said Maistelman, who helped the Levys get the FBI involved in the case.
According to a source at Justice, investigators "have records indicating someone used Chandra's computer the day after she was last seen on April 30, and that her cell phone had also been used on May 1."
"Her computer was definitely logged on with her password."
DEVELOPING HOT...
-----------------------------------------------------------
Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2001
Not for reproduction without permission of the authorGovernment Expands Levy Probe
Friday, July 13, 2001; 1:59 a.m. EDT
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON –– Federal officials have expanded their investigation into Chandra Levy's disappearance to determine whether Rep. Gary Condit obstructed justice.
The search for the 24-year-old former federal intern was moving forward on several fronts. Police were re-interviewing people at Levy's apartment building and continued a search of abandoned buildings in Washington. Police also were awaiting FBI laboratory tests to see if items removed from Condit's apartment contained blood.
Items sent to the lab after a light and chemical test used to detect possible blood included a portion of a miniblind and swabs of residue taken from spots on the floor and wall of the California Democrat's residence, law enforcement officials said.
They cautioned that the light test can react to various organic materials, and only lab tests can confirm whether the suspect material constituted blood or another substance.
Terrance Gainer, Washington's No. 2 police official, said Thursday that authorities were expecting no major advances in their investigation as a result of the almost four-hour search early Wednesday morning that was done with Condit's consent and in his presence.
Police have said repeatedly they do not consider Condit a suspect in Levy's disappearance. A police source has said the congressman acknowledged a romantic relationship with the former Bureau of Prisons intern.
Federal prosecutors and the FBI were looking at a flight attendant's allegation that Condit urged her to sign a statement denying a 10-month affair she says they had. Anne Marie Smith also said Condit told her she did not have to cooperate with FBI agents who questioned her.
Smith ended two days of interviews with federal prosecutors and FBI agents Thursday. They were trying to determine whether to go further, said one official familiar with the matter. They also have sought any information Smith might have about Levy.
Condit, 53 and married, has denied asking anyone to lie or not cooperate with investigators trying to determine what happened to Levy, last seen April 30. He has not commented on any relationship with Smith.
Marina Ein, a spokeswoman for Condit, repeated Thursday that he is cooperating with police in all aspects of the investigation.
Federal law enforcement officials told The Associated Press they also are interested in other contacts Condit's representatives may have had with potential witnesses in the case.
A source close to Condit's legal team, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that an official contacted former Condit intern Jennifer Baker, a friend of Levy, about a photograph of Condit and the two women that made its way onto television newscasts. Some stations showed Condit and Levy together, with Baker's image cropped out.
Baker's attorney, Don Heller of Sacramento, Calif., confirmed that Baker talked to a Condit aide about the photo but said, "She was not asked to do anything improper, not asked to lie at all."
A search of vacant buildings was continuing. Gainer said police also were working on a picture of Levy that would simulate a different hair style and other possible changes in her appearance. "If she did go off on her own, it would help recognize her," Gainer said.
He said investigators are working on four theories in Levy's disappearance: that she was a killed, committed suicide, walked away voluntarily or is wandering around without knowing who she is.
Police negotiations with Condit's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, have failed to produce an agreement on conditions under which the congressman would submit to a lie detector test, Gainer said.
© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
Rev Warned Intern's Mom
Of His Daughter's Bad Fling
By HELEN KENNEDY
Daily News Washington BureauPentecostal minister told Susan Levy in April to warn her daughter about Rep. Gary Condit because his own daughter had had an affair with the congressman that ended badly, The Washington Post reports today.
Levy called her daughter and urged her to break up with Condit, but Chandra Levy balked. Two weeks before she vanished, she told her mother she had talked to Condit about the minister's daughter and that Condit had "explained it all."
The Rev. Otis Thomas told The Post that he and Susan Levy discussed their daughters when he was doing some landscaping at the Levys' home in Modesto, Calif., in early April.
When Levy said her daughter had become friendly with Condit, Thomas related how his then-18-year-old daughter had come to him seven years ago seeking advice about breaking off a relationship with the congressman, whom she had met at a political rally.
"I told Mrs. Levy that with my daughter it ended badly, that I think her daughter should end the relationship with him right away," Thomas told The Post.
Thomas said Susan Levy then got on the phone, and that he heard her argue about it with her daughter.
"Chandra told her mother to mind her own business, that she was a grown woman who could deal with it," Thomas told The Post.
Susan Levy confirmed his account, The Post reported.
The FBI has interviewed Thomas, but his daughter became frightened after Chandra Levy vanished and has gone into hiding, he said. She is afraid even to talk to the FBI, he told The Post.
She told her father Condit had warned her never to mention their relationship to anyone, The Post reported.
Condit's spokeswoman and lawyer attacked The Post for printing the story, but did not dispute its accuracy.
Thomas' daughter is the latest in a growing series of women surfacing from Condit's past.
Another Modesto woman has come forward to say Condit gave her the number for his secret love line — the same one Chandra Levy repeatedly called just before she vanished.
The 31-year-old former congressional aide said Condit gave her the private pager number about five years ago.
"He has this mysterious phone number that he gives out to all the girls," the woman, who was not identified, told The Modesto Bee newspaper. "When you call this number, you just hear music playing and then a beep. That is when you are supposed to leave a message."
The Modesto woman, who worked in two California congressional offices, said Condit paid her a lot of attention over several weeks about five years ago. He "continued to flirt with me and basically proposition me," she said.
Flight attendant Anne Marie Smith has said she used the same number to set up trysts with the congressman.
The phone system gave Condit a private way for his friends to leave him discreet messages without contacting him at home or at the office. And his name was never mentioned, in case anyone dialed it accidentally.
Original Publication Date: 7/12/01
© 2001 Daily News, L.P.
Seems Trouble Runs
In Congressman's Family
By TIMOTHY J. BURGER
Daily News Washington Bureau
MODESTO, Calif.he Chandra Levy case isn't the first brush with controversy for the Condit boys.Rep. Gary Condit's two brothers, one a cop and one a convicted drug addict, have both had their share of problems.
Sgt. Burl Condit, 55, was one of several officers who were caught up in a 1999 scandal involving the improper sale of old guns belonging to the Modesto Police Department.
The officers were allowed to take one gun each under the condition they would eventually pay for them. Condit, however, took nine and there was no record he ever paid for them, according to a department investigation.
Condit was never charged with wrongdoing. He later returned four of the guns, but said he no longer owned the other five weapons, The Modesto Bee reported.
Sgt. Condit did not return calls.
Burl Condit also was sued last year by a credit agency over a $2,300 cell phone bill and was ordered to pay, court records show.
The youngest Condit brother, Darrell, 49, — labeled a drug addict by a judge in 1984 — has been in and out of jail since a 1979 forgery conviction in the Condits' hometown of Tulsa, Okla., files show.
He has since been nabbed on charges including theft, DUI, heroin and psilocybin possession and, in 1999 for smoking pot — while in jail. He also was charged with assaulting Modesto deputies in 1989 with a hammer handle.
During an incident on July 4, 1998, Condit threatened political retaliation against an officer who stopped him in Ceres, Calif., for riding his bicycle on the wrong side of the road. Officer Chris Perry ended up handing Darrell Condit over to the sheriff in Key West, Fla., to face a DUI warrant, the files said.
"Condit told me that I was going to be in big trouble for arresting him on this warrant because his brother Congressman Gary Condit and his other brother Sgt. Burl Condit from the Modesto Police Department, would get him out of this incident," Perry wrote in his report.
Original Publication Date: 7/12/01
© 2001 Daily News, L.P.
ABC's messy role in Condit affair
The network now says one of its reporters -- the subject of tabloid rumors -- claims she never met with Condit the day he claims they did; the day Chandra Levy most likely disappeared.
By Joshua Micah Marshall
July 13, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- As the Gary Condit-Chandra Levy affair burst into the full flower of scandal at the end of June, Condit's office provided Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police with a timeline of Condit's activities on the crucial days surrounding Levy's disappearance. Learning of the existence of the timeline, ABC News subsequently requested a copy, and received one from a source in Rep. Condit's office.
What soon became apparent to reporters and producers at ABC News, though, was that there were two critical portions of the timeline that simply did not seem true. And the network struggled with this information for nearly three weeks before fully detailing the nature of the discrepancies during the Wednesday edition of "Nightline."
One of ABC's own off-air reporters had met with Condit about an unrelated matter (the California energy crisis) on the day after Levy's disappearance, May 2. But the timeline provided to ABC News appeared to say that this meeting had occurred on May 1 -- the very day Levy went missing.
Further complicating the matter for ABC were ambiguities surrounding Condit's relationship with the ABC reporter in question. The New York Post has reported (and Fox News trumpeted) that Condit had an affair with an ABC producer and, based on information in the Post, and according to sources within the network, it's clear that this is the same woman who had met with Condit on May 2. The romantic link, however, is firmly and unequivocally denied by the network. "This reporter," an ABC News executive told Salon on Thursday, "has had a professional relationship with Congressman Condit for years, nothing more than that, period."
So the story plays out like this: According to ABC sources, the ABC News off-air reporter met with Rep. Condit at the Tryst restaurant (that's no joke) on May 2, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., to discuss the California energy crisis. The reporter eventually circulated an e-mail to this effect within ABC's Washington Bureau long before the significance of the meeting became known. Yet the timeline provided by the Condit camp made no mention of this meeting, even though it did cover the day in question.
The Condit timeline did, however, mention another meeting at the same location with an unnamed reporter -- but with one critical difference. Rather than taking place on the afternoon of May 2, the timeline had this meeting taking place between 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on May 1. Police place Chandra's last known whereabouts in her apartment early on May 1, in part because of an e-mail she apparently sent from her computer that morning.
Producers and reporters at ABC News could not at first be certain that the purported May 1 meeting was not with some other reporter from another news organization (no names were supplied in the timeline). But they were quite certain that they knew where the congressman was the following afternoon, and that his timeline did not reflect his whereabouts. "We had no way of knowing," the same ABC News executive told Salon on Thursday, "whether this was a sin of omission or commission, or whether there were two different meetings."
Based on the apparent discrepancy, however, ABC immediately contacted both the congressman's office and his legal team. "We went back to his attorney Abbe Lowell's office," said the same ABC News executive. "We said, 'We know there was a meeting with an ABC news reporter but we don't see it on [the timeline].' They told us 'this was just a draft, just a draft of a timeline which is neither complete nor completely accurate.' We asked, 'Who was the meeting with on Tuesday and why isn't there [any mention of a meeting] on Wednesday?' They said they'd get back to us. But we have never gotten an official response." According to another print reporter covering the case, Condit's chief of staff Mike Lynch, later refused to distribute copies of the timeline to other news organizations, telling the reporter that the timeline contained "mistakes" and that he had been chastised by members of Condit's legal team for releasing the timeline to ABC News.
This back-and-forth with the Condit camp placed ABC News producers in an awkward position. In a strictly factual sense, a source in the congressman's office had provided them with an alibi for his whereabouts on the day of Chandra Levy's disappearance, which they first suspected and then later knew to be false. However, according to the same ABC News executive, they had no way of knowing whether this was an intentional deception or simply an innocent error. Nor could they could be certain that the timeline they were given was the same one that had been given to the police -- something that they rightly believed would have amounted to a more serious offense.
Absent some clear evidence of deception rather than error, ABC News executives decided simply to correct the error in the timeline it subsequently published, placing the meeting at the correct May 2 rather than focusing on why the original document had contained such a pivotal misstatement.
On "Good Morning America" on June 29, for instance, ABC reporter Pierre Thomas described the timeline in its original form and then added that "hours after this account was provided by sources close to Condit and first reported by ABC News, the congressman's office called to say the information released was in draft form and contained inaccuracies. They were not specific."
Over the subsequent two weeks, ABC News has slowly revealed more details of this exchange. On Wednesday, Thomas gave a still more precise account of the events in question on "Nightline." The timeline, he noted, said Condit met "with a reporter the evening of May 1st at a local coffee shop, from 6:30 until 7:30. That reporter, who works for ABC News, remembers the meeting taking place the next day. Condit's office immediately [put] out a statement saying the timeline was only a draft. [But] they still have not provided a corrected version."
ABC has, however, still pointedly refrained from questioning whether this was an attempt to create a false alibi on what can only be called the critical day in question. And police continue to refuse comment on the details of the timeline they were originally given.
No doubt the people at ABC News were placed in a very difficult position. It is not inconceivable that in the rush to get out a timeline of the congressman's activities a simple mistake could have been made. After all, a backbench congressman's office doesn't keep the sort of copious and precise records that a president or even a senator does. And given what the ABC News executive called the "very immediate pull-back" of the story, perhaps it was the better part of wisdom to give Condit's office the benefit of the doubt.
Yet while Condit's lawyers distanced themselves from the timeline shortly after it was given to ABC, they did not do so unprompted. They did so only after ABC called them on an error. And while ABC has altered its timeline, replacing the 6:30 p.m. meeting on May 1 with the one on May 2, they say they have done so without any explicit confirmation from the Condit camp.
Which leaves two big questions: Was Condit trying to juggle his itinerary to create an alibi? And just what was Gary Condit doing between 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on May 1?
About the writer
Joshua Micah Marshall is a writer in Washington.Copyright 2001 Salon.com
Condit's Democratic enablers
The congressman's colleagues should have demanded he come clean about Chandra Levy right away. Instead, they're still defending his stonewalling.
By Joan Walsh
July 13, 2001 | Liberal Democrats have always suspected that Blue Dog moderate Gary Condit was a closet Republican. Now, the paranoid among them must be wondering if his disastrous handling of the Chandra Levy tragedy is part of a secret plot to help President Bush.
After all, with Bush sagging in the polls, budget deficit projections soaring after his big tax cut, and his energy and environmental plans going up in smoke, the eyes of the nation are nonetheless fixed on Gary Condit, as the cable shows chat 24/7 about what the Democratic congressman might have had to do with Levy's disappearance.
But instead of criticizing their centrist colleague for his bad judgment in getting involved with a 24-year-old intern -- and then scrambling to cover it up after she disappeared -- many Democratic legislators have gone to unbelievable lengths to defend Condit.
"I know one thing for sure, that Gary Condit did not have anything to do with the disappearance of Chandra Levy," Rep. Nancy Pelosi told CNN, insisting Condit is still ably serving his constituents despite the controversy.
That's an incredible statement, unless Pelosi herself was spending every minute with Condit the day Levy is believed to have vanished. (And while the list of women who've been intimate with the married congressman grows longer every day, Pelosi isn't on it.) Personally, I too find it hard to believe Condit murdered Levy, but no one can say for sure that he didn't. And if it turns out that Levy came to harm or harmed herself, it's very likely that it had something to do with the young woman's sad relationship with the 53-year-old congressman. Pelosi has no business denying that possibility.
Democrats should have been calling on Condit from Day 1 to come clean about his relationship with Levy. The fact that he only recently told police they were lovers means law enforcement officials lost critical weeks in trying to understand Levy's frame of mind at the time she disappeared. In the event she was murdered, they no doubt lost access to crucial clues, clues that probably don't but could conceivably lead to Condit. (Tragic but true: One-third of women who are murdered are killed by their boyfriends or husbands).
Instead, many Democrats have concentrated on showing support for their beleaguered colleague. "It's important to have him know that he has friends standing by him," declared Rep. Elliott Engel, D-N.Y. "When someone hits a rough spot, do you throw him overboard? I don't think so," adds Rep. Anna Eshoo, like Condit, a Democrat from California. "None of us here, Republican or Democrat, kick people when they're down."
While California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has criticized Condit for his failure to come clean, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt continues to insist that "Gary is cooperating in every possible way with the police investigation to try to make this happen, and that's what he should continue to do. I think he's doing what he's been asked to do." It was Gephardt's bad luck to be quoted by the Associated Press defending Condit the very same day federal officials opened a criminal probe into whether the congressman has obstructed justice during the investigation.
It fell to former Clinton White House Counsel Lanny Davis to blast his fellow Democrats in Thursday's New York Times. "The silence of Democratic officials is both wrong and politically shortsighted," wrote Davis on the op-ed page. "Their failure to speak out may be giving tacit approval to Mr. Condit's delay in being forthcoming with the public."
In fact, the sight of Democrats rallying to Condit's defense is a symptom of everything that's wrong with American politics today. Politicians live in a parallel universe where rules are broken without consequences, and arrogance crosses party lines. Certainly Democrats have no corner on womanizing: the series of revelations about Reps. Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston and Newt Gingrich during President Clinton's impeachment crisis proved that.
But Democrats do seem to have a slight edge on Republicans when it comes to stupidity about their womanizing, and what to do once they get caught. From Gary Hart's monkey business with Donna Rice to Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations" speech; Jesse Jackson's dalliance with a staffer to Gary Condit and his "good friend" Chandra Levy (how a busy 53-year-old congressman finds time to be a "good friend" to a 24-year-old intern always seemed a question demanding greater scrutiny) -- Democrats cavort with an evident zeal to be discovered, but then lamely try to cover their affairs up, long past the time when that's possible.
And Democrats have apparently been covering up for Condit for years. Before he was a Blue Dog, he was widely rumored to be a hound dog. Waitresses, staffers, interns -- no woman was safe from the attention of the conservative Baptist minister's son with the wandering eye. I worked in Sacramento for the California state Assembly when the frosted-haired Condit was an assemblyman, and he was the kind of person older women staffers warned you not to be alone with, who you might not want to stand next to on the "members' elevator" -- the one staffers could only use when traveling the Capitol with their "member" (and the fact that the members were almost all men made the term an icky but hilarious double entendre.)
Those were the days when the Assembly was like Animal House under Speaker Willie Brown, who, it should be noted, was never dumb enough to lie about his womanizing; in fact, he's proud of it. (The still-married San Francisco mayor, 66, recently had a baby with his 38-year-old chief fundraiser, which means he's apparently broken one of his few rules for romance: He once told a reporter the combination of his and his current girlfriend's age could never add up to more than 100.)
Sacramento under Brown was a sexual free-fire zone, with legislators openly partying with staffers and putting their mistresses on payrolls. Of all the places I've worked, it was the absolute creepiest for women. You thought every day about what you wore, lest you unwittingly signal you were one of those women, the ones hired for skills other than word processing or bill analysis. It was one big frat party, and Condit was a nightlife-loving party boy whom Brown sometimes hung out with, even though they might clash politically during the day. (His nickname was Gary Condom, and women staffers joked about organizing a "Condoms for Condit" fundraiser, to ensure he would at least have safe sex.)
That's why Condit's 1988 falling out with Brown, when his Gang of Five tried to topple Brown as speaker, was semi-surprising. Brown was thought to be cozying up to the so-called "Grizzlies," a relatively ineffectual coalition of liberal Democrats (which included Tom Hayden and my then-boss, Assemblyman Tom Bates). Condit and his legislative pals -- fellow party boy Rusty Areias, Chuck Calderon, Jerry Eaves and Steve Peace -- tried to partner with Republicans to depose Brown, but the wily speaker swatted them away like gnats. The rest of the gang became a political footnote, but Condit went to Congress.
Since Levy's disappearance, I've sorted through my shadowy memories of Condit and wondered if they're at all relevant to his troubles in the Levy case. As always, I agonize over whether someone's private misbehavior should be fodder for public debate, though frankly, I think Condit's political and personal hypocrisy -- he was one of the few Democrats to blast Clinton for the Lewinsky affair, despite his own womanizing past -- has always made it fairly easy to defend scrutiny of his private life. I've been surprised not to see it before now.
And as the number of reported Condit paramours continues to grow, I've come to believe even more strongly that he deserves scrutiny, now. Now a Modesto minister says his teenage daughter had an affair with the congressman; flight attendant Anne Marie Smith is telling her story to investigators, and a Washington journalist is also widely believed to be among those who had affairs with the busy politician.
Let me be clear: Condit's randy private life doesn't automatically make him a bad public servant. But the fact that he was able to go to Congress, hold his seat and become a statewide political powerhouse despite his womanizing fortified an arrogance that led to, at least, an unforgivable lapse of judgment when he lied to police about Chandra Levy. That swaggering attitude caused him to think it was OK to cover up an affair with a missing constituent, and deprive police of information that might have solved the mystery -- which may well involve murder -- much sooner.
Condit's Democratic colleagues, from Gephardt to Pelosi to Gov. Gray Davis, have all helped foster that arrogance. "I know, as a mother of five children, four daughters, one of whom lives in that neighborhood, that our major concern should be focused on finding Chandra Levy," Pelosi told CNN. That's true, and Condit would have helped that cause if he'd been honest about his affair with Levy from the start. The fact that Democrats are defending Condit, rather than calling for him to come clean -- or perhaps, even resign -- makes them complicit in his deception.
About the writer
Joan Walsh is the editor of Salon News.Copyright 2001 Salon.com
Woe To Successful Conservatives
by L. Brent Bozell III
July 12, 2001President Bush probably wouldn't appreciate a historical comparison to Warren Harding, but "Back to Normalcy" is definitely an underappreciated theme and consequence of his election. After eight years of constant Clinton administration lying and corruption, the Bush administration has definitely restored a sense of integrity to the political process.
But to watch the press corps at work is to see reality turned on its head. The national so-called “news” media which spent eight years ignoring or dismissing one Clinton scandal after another just can’t get enough of GOP scandals, no matter how unscandalous they are.
On the national level, we've seen the case of White House strategist Karl Rove, with Henry "What Clinton Scandal?" Waxman claiming that Mr. Rove's failure to sell Intel stocks before meeting with Intel staffers in the White House is somehow worse than everything the Clintons did combined. But if Waxman and his media lapdogs really cared about ethics, they would have cared about the largely unexamined 1993 controversy over First Lady Hillary Clinton's investments in a Value Partners fund which sold health stocks short while she maligned the health care industry and sold her socialist takeover scheme. The Clintons did not put their financial holdings in a blind trust until six months after taking office.
On the state level, there's New Jersey's new GOP gubernatorial nominee, Bret Schundler. There isn’t even a hint of unethical behavior but this doesn’t make him any less controversial. Schundler, you see, is an unrequited Reaganite, Reaganism being the political equivalent of leprosy for the Washington establishment. Schundler, who couldn't possibly mean what he says about compassionate conservatism, including that gassy compassion about the survival of unborn children, is the “issue” in that race.
There are even local examples of this anti-GOP jihad. Newsday, the liberal paper that, along with NPR, holds the dubious distinction of foisting Anita Hill's fractured fairy tales on Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court nomination, also enjoys trashing conservatives in its Long Island backyard. Days after Newsday's editorial page gnashed its teeth under the headline "Nassau GOP Succumbs to Conservatives," the paper charged that Nassau County Republican Chairman Joseph Mondello was part of a sleazy back room deal to cut his own property taxes. Over a picture of his new home on its front page, Newsday ran the headline "Chosen Few," alleging Mondello received a favorable tax assessment because of his party position.
At the heart of this stop-the-presses front page bombshell was a suggestion – not even an allegation, mind you, since no one has found a scintilla of evidence. It suggested a property tax reduction Mr. Mondello received which at most will save him $1,353 in property taxes. That’s it.
Well, Mr. Mondello doesn’t think that’s it at all. He’s now suing Newsday for $60 million, saying the photo and story "unquestionably left the impression that I had participated in unethical, if not illegal behavior."
If Mr. Mondello were a moderate Republican he’d have no ethical worries. Reporters make jokes about Sen. Lincoln Chafee's admission of drug use as a young man, while they all spent weeks chasing down unsubstantiated charges of cocaine use by candidate Bush, and put on long faces when Democrats uncovered Bush's 1976 DUI arrest. If Mr. Schundler were a moderate Republican his views would never be challenged. He’d get the John McCain treatment, ably demonstrated by CBS "Early Show" sharpie Jane Clayson, who asked McCain: "You've worked so hard on campaign finance reform. If it doesn't go your way, how disappointed will you be?"
The rules are definitely different if you're a Democrat. When you get in trouble, it's likely the media will drop that troublesome party label in case people get the wrong idea that party affiliation is relevant. Last year, when legendary Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards finally went to prison for a long spell on 17 counts of racketeering, CBS and NBC couldn't locate a party label, and on ABC Peter Jennings discovered late in the story that he appealed to "old-line white Democrats, blacks, and Cajuns."
Now there's the case of Rep. Gary Condit, who has admitted lying about an affair with missing intern Chandra Levy, and now is the eye of the hurricane, with one bizarre tidbit after another emerging about him. Did I say “Democrat?” If I did, I gave you more details than the networks want released. In 67 stories since May 1, ABC has used the “Democrat” label a total of three times. CBS has filed 38 stories, two “Democrat” labels. For NBC it’s 74 reports, nine party labels.
That’s 174 stories. In only 14 of them – 8 percent – was the “Democratic” label applied.
I have no idea what happened to Chandra Levy. I do know the Democratic Party is getting away with murder.
Bozell's News Column Archive | Op-Ed Archive
Reprinted by permission of L. Brent Bozell and Creators Syndicate.
CLICK HERE TO GO ON TO DEMOCRAP GARY CONDIT'S FURTHER REVELATIONS ON NEXT PAGE HE GOT AN 18 YR OLD PREGNANT!
