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CNN Live At Daybreak
After Condit's Admission of Affair, Chandra Levy's Parents Want Polygraph
Aired July 09, 2001 - 07:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: On the heels of Congressman Gary Condit's admission of an affair with Chandra Levy, there is word that the missing intern's parents now want him to take a polygraph.
With more on that "Washington Post" report, here's CNN's congressional correspondent Bob Franken.
Good morning -- Bob.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Colleen.
That's hardly a surprise; the parents, using a variety of public relations people, have tried to keep the pressure on Congressman Gary Condit, and more importantly, have tried to keep this in the public eye. And there, of course, are PR efforts, and that's the only way to describe it. There is PR on both sides.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Time now for the damage control, now that Congressman Gary Condit, according to law enforcement sources, admitted to police interviewers what he has publicly denied until now, that he did have a romantic relationship with 24-year-old Chandra Levy, a former Washington intern who disappeared nine and a half weeks ago. That 90-minute interview took place Friday night in the office of his attorney, Abbe Lowell.
By Sunday, Lowell was making the talk show rounds. He refused over and over to confirm exactly what the congressman told police about Chandra Levy. He insisted that Condit had given police every shred of information that could be helpful
ABBE LOWELL, CONDIT'S ATTORNEY: Congressman Condit has told the police everything he possibly can about the nature of their interactions.
FRANKEN: Police emphasized again Condit is not a suspect. Lowell took issue again with the news media for focusing so much on the congressman's personal life. But investigators say it took three interviews with Condit to get all the answers to their questions about that. They still don't have the answer to the important question.
TERRANCE GAINER, ASSISTANT POLICE CHIEF, WASHINGTON, D.C.: I don't know what happened to Chandra Levy, and we still haven't figured that out.
FRANKEN: Investigators say that in their efforts to figure this out, they hope to finally search garbage landfills in the area, taking cadaver dogs in the hope that they do not find evidence.
Police say that at the moment at least they have gotten the answers from Gary Condit that they needed. Condit will now have to answer to his colleagues in Congress. Several House members told CNN he had assured them privately there was no affair.
REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R), CONNECTICUT: I took him at his word that he didn't have an affair with Chandra Levy. He obviously did -- at least it appears he did -- and it's just an incredible lesson. You need to tell the truth, and if you don't tell the truth, then everything else you say is called into question.
FRANKEN: Still on the agenda: the pressure for Congressman Condit to go public about his private life.
LOWELL: The elections are a year and three months from now. Let's find Chandra Levy and then figure out what we do from there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: As long as Congressman Condit remains to not be a suspect, he can get on with repairing his career and his life, while investigators continue to search, Colleen, in the hope that Chandra Levy has not lost her life.
MCEDWARDS: Well, Bob, now that Condit has admitted his affair, he's not a suspect -- so in what way is that admission really significant, beyond his relationship with his congressional colleagues and his constituents?
FRANKEN: Well, the police found it significant. They wanted to know just how well they knew each other so there could be an idea of how much knowledge he might have of the way Chandra Levy thinks, the intimacies, of course, perhaps giving him more of a portal into her mind and the way she might operate.
The significance also may be in how this story plays out. We now have had answered one of the big questions that has really fueled the story all along -- and we'll have to see if the interest remains as high now that that's been answered -- but Chandra Levy is still missing.
MCEDWARDS: CNN's Bob Franken, thanks.
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