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CNN Live At Daybreak

The Search for Chandra: Condit Reportedly Spotted Disposing of Gift From Female Friend

Aired July 20, 2001 - 08:07   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: A new development in the Chandra Levy/Gary Condit situation. National correspondent Bob Franken has more for us now.

Bob, what's going on?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, as you know, the Gary Condit apartment building has become one of the most familiar ones in the world. Cameras are out there pretty much around the clock right now. The one in Washington, D.C. they are this morning.

But we want to take you back 10 days to July 10, when his condominium was searched. Four hours before that search actually occurred, according to a knowledgeable police source, Condit was spotted by somebody who recognized him on TV in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from Washington. He was dropping something into a garbage can. The police were called, and we are told that they retrieved a watch case that they subsequently traced to a woman friend of his. It was a gift that was provided to him.

No other comment from the police -- Police continue to insist, as they always do, that this was not connected to Chandra Levy, that they have no reason to believe that Condit had anything to do with the disappearance of Chandra Levy.

The search, of course, has been going on. This is the 81st day since Levy disappeared. And it was the fourth day of a police search of the woods and the forests around Washington, D.C. But the police chief, Charles Ramsey, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN last night that the investigation clearly has bogged down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF CHARLES RAMSEY, WASHINGTON, D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE: We still don't have a hard lead. We still don't have anything that causes us now to focus our investigation on one of the main possibilities that are still open to us. So right now, we are still wondering what happened to Chandra Levy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: And one other loose end, Colleen: The House Ethics Committee had been asked by Representative Bob Barr to take up the Gary Condit matter and his relationship with Chandra Levy. The ethics committee, as it usually does, has said, no, it will postpone action. It does not want to get in the way of a police investigation -- Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: Understood. CNN's Bob Franken, thanks.

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