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American Morning

The Search for Chandra: Focus on Condit Grows Tighter

Aired July 11, 2001 - 10:01   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.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Washington police say little has changed. Chandra Levy remains missing, as does any evidence of a crime being committed. But despite the public portrayal of this being strictly a missing persons case, the focus on Congressman Gary Condit is growing tighter. Just before midnight, police evidence technicians began a search of his Washington apartment. And as early as today, he could face polygraph and DNA testing.

For the latest on all of this, let's check in with CNN national correspondent Bob Franken -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Steve, I would not count on the polygraph test being taken today. There's a lot of negotiation left. It's going to take some time. They're going to have to discuss issues like whether to take the lie detector test. Abbe Lowell, Condit's attorney, did not absolutely agree to that. He just said he would discuss it. And who would administrator the test? The police want the FBI polygraph man, but the attorney for Condit might want to go with one of the experts that they would choose. So that kind of negotiation is probably going to make this spread out over a couple of days, according to our sources.

Now, as for Condit's apartment, let's take a look at the scene out there now. It's very, very quiet. There you see a live picture of the building in Adams Morgan where Congressman Gary Condit lives. It was a different scene about 2:30 this morning when the police evidence team turned up with their very sophisticated tools, their forensic tools, including chemicals that can be used to spot blood and that type of thing. The police will tell you that they were looking for signs of a struggle in this investigation.

The police spent about two and a half hours in Congressman Condit's apartment. They oftentimes could be seen through the windows with their strobe lights and moving around quite a bit. This was considered a very, very thorough search and as I say, it ended about, actually, 2:40 in the morning when the officers came out and they were carrying evidence that they had accumulated in paper bags. You can see it right there. And those lights that I was talking about, they came, they had absolutely nothing to say about that.

And at the police department this morning, the police officials are sitting there contemplating their next move. The reason they could do this search, by the way, is that they got permission to do so from the lawyers for Congressman Gary Condit. Police officials told us that they were not able to do this, really, that they didn't have enough what they call probable cause material to actually get a warrant.

Now, as for the kind of evidence they were seeking, we got some answers from that from the police chief, Charles Ramsey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF CHARLES RAMSEY, D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE: The kind of evidence that we are able to obtain during a search now is very, very difficult, if not impossible to conceal. So I'm very confident that with a thorough search if there was evidence there, we would recover evidence. But then again, there's always that possibility, which is a good possibility, that there'll be nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: And by the way, I think we would want to go back now to the apartment of Congressman Gary Condit. Just moments ago he left his apartment and got into his car. This would be about the time of day -- you can see the cameraman there as the congressman got into his car. This would be the time of day that the congressman would be going to the Capitol and we'll talk more about that in a moment. But if we can, I'd like to once again finish the thought from the police chief about the kind of evidence that they were looking for.

Let's repeat what he had to say. The kind of evidence they're looking for includes material that shows signs of a struggle, that type of thing, to the kind of clothing that was there, to see if they could match the clothing that Chandra Levy wore. They'd be looking for DNA evidence, that type of material.

As for Congressman Condit, if he's going to the Capitol, and he would be expected to about this time of day, he will once again walk into a buzz saw. First of all, wherever he goes these days he's followed by cameras and reporters asking him to comment on the Chandra Levy matter and, of course, he is not doing that, as we well know.

He also has to face some of his colleagues. He had told, according to many of them he had said that it was untrue, he was not having that kind of relationship with Chandra Levy, a romantic relationship that now police sources tell us he admitted to investigators last Friday night.

And there's another problem for him, perhaps, and that is Anne Marie Smith, who is in Washington, D.C. She is the flight attendant who is going to be interviewed today by the U.S. attorney here after her claim that she had a romantic relationship with Condit herself and that Condit asked her to lie about it under oath in a sworn affidavit.

Now, Condit and his lawyers say that's not true, they just presented her a statement and said she could revise it any way they can. Whatever the truth of this is, it's going to be discussed here with the U.S. attorney. And, of course, there's so many facets to this, it's very important to point out that this is an investigation into a 24-year-old woman, a former Washington intern who has now been missing for 10 weeks and police say they don't know where she is -- Stephen?

FRAZIER: Bob, was it possible to tell from outside the apartment as those strobes were flashing -- you mentioned the strobes -- whether they were, in fact, photography strobes or those ultraviolet lights they use to detect old blood stains that may have been cleaned off or even painted over? And wouldn't that darken the whole investigation if that's what they were after?

FRANKEN: Well, a couple -- let's go one by one. First of all, we did see flash lights there. We did see also very high intensity flash\lights that they wanted to very much brighten the room so they would not miss anything. Of course, this occurred overnight between about 11:30 and 2:30 in the morning, that type of thing.

But they also used, there's a chemical called Luminol which they put on material then they shine ultraviolet lights on it and blood shows up. That is the kind of thing that they were looking for. The police were quite candid they were looking for signs of a struggle. But, when you ask if it paints some sort of a dark picture, the police are saying they want to be very, very thorough, very thorough -- Steve?

FRAZIER: Bob Franken with the latest on this investigation. Bob, thank you very much. More coming now from Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, of course one of the things we're talking about are lie detector tests. We are wondering how they work. This is part of a two hour demonstration.

With more, here's Eileen O'Connor, CNN and Bob Waller (ph) in Washington, D.C. -- Eileen, good morning again.

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. And with us is Walter Atwood, who just administered the test in the last hour to honest Bob over here. And we want to make sure that you know that while they are talking to Congressman Condit about a lie detector test, they are also talking to other people who they have interviewed during this investigation about taking a lie detector test. We don't know if the congressman will agree to that. His lawyers said they will talk about it, as Bob pointed out.

Now, before we asked Bob Waller, who is our executive producer and honest as they come, although I've never heard that nickname before used.

WALLER: I made it up.

O'CONNOR: Yes. Anyway, so Bob was asked several questions and here are the results of the tests that we did live in the last hour. Now, they weren't very conclusive because we were moving around, correct?

WALTER ATWOOD, POLYGRAPH EXAMINER: And there's too many people in the room and it was new so he didn't really get finished...

WALLER: I failed my test. Let's, can we show them some of that test?

O'CONNOR: So, but, you know what we did is we repeated the test and we asked the same exact questions, Daryn, through this. Now, what did Bob say when asked was he born in 1942?

ATWOOD: He said yes.

WALLER: Yes, well, you can't get around that.

O'CONNOR: OK. And how about Harvard University? We asked him if he went to Harvard and he said yes.

ATWOOD: Yes, for which it showed that he did not go to Harvard.

WALLER: I'm very proud to be a University of Virginia man.

ATWOOD: He falsely answered that question.

O'CONNOR: OK. Now we did also ask Bob some pertinent questions about this investigation. Did you know Chandra Levy was one of the questions? And you responded no.

WALLER: Yes. That showed truthful.

O'CONNOR: And what about, though, and this is very interesting, what about the results on the whether or not Bob had ever been to the house?

ATWOOD: Well, you can see that he's a little bit concerned about that question and he showed a response. Now, there could be several reasons for that. He was thinking about going there, he would going an investigation there or sent someone there. At least it showed the thought that he was, had some reference to that house or a house.

O'CONNOR: But is this what people call a false positive? I've been told by critics of polygraphs that one of the things that happens is that someone who's concerned about being truthful perhaps can get very nervous and actually show that they're not being truthful when, in fact, they are?

ATWOOD: That's correct and that's one of the reasons why we asked that question more than once and on two or three different charts, so we see if it repeats and more than likely they're concerned or if it doesn't repeat then it just happens to be a false response at that one time question.

O'CONNOR: What were you thinking about?

WALLER: Well, as you recall, Eileen, we had a conversation just before we came in. One of the surprising things to me is everyone knows the questions before the test begins. It's not like you see some Hollywood movies where someone springs a question like, "Did you know Joe Smith?"

O'CONNOR: Right. WALLER: And they've never asked anything about that. The questions were predetermined so I was going over them with you and we were talking about the apartment question. We're working some coverage on that later in the day and that was on my mind.

O'CONNOR: So that may well have caused the false positive. As you can see, Daryn, these are fairly good for investigative tools, but as it's been pointed out they're not admissible in many courtrooms -- Daryn?

KAGAN: Very good, and as we had mentioned off the air, we have other questions headed to Bob Waller that we down here in Atlanta want to know a lot about our friend up there in Washington, D.C. Eileen, thanks to you and thanks to Bob and thanks for telling us more about the lie detector test.

FRAZIER: Daryn, a moment ago as we were talking to Bob Franken, he made mention of the fact that Congressman Gary Condit would be reporting to work today. Of course, the House is back in session after the recess for the Fourth of July, and there were some pictures made of him as he was leaving his apartment to go to work. And these are the pictures now, which we've just turned around. As you can see, he's got to face -- as Bob mentioned -- his colleagues on the Hill, after telling them, as well as the United States public and his own constituents in his district, the 18th of California, that he was not having an affair with Ms. Levy.

So on his way in and a full agenda there. So we may see him arriving and to hear President Bush. More on this now. Tonight, on THE POINT WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN we'll hear from an attorney representing Anne Marie Smith, who you recall is the flight attendant who claims to have had an affair with Congressman Condit and who alleges, more importantly, that the congressman tried to keep her quiet. That is at 8:30 Eastern, 5:30 Pacific Time on CNN.

The Chandra Levy case and recent reports that Congressman Condit has acknowledged an affair with the former intern has now drawn inescapable comparisons to Bill Clinton, a married man in power, a young woman in awe and a media feeding frenzy in high gear. Yet at least on Capitol Hill, one person scoffs at the comparisons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN EPSTEIN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE COUNSEL: The notion of trying to hang this episode on the doorstep of Bill Clinton, I think, is a little bit facile. Look, there have been extramarital affairs going on since the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans, and they've been trying to cover it up since the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans. There's a long list of presidents, Republican and Democrat, who were, as you know, accused of having extramarital affairs. Many members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, I don't know that the statistics exceed the general population, but this syndrome occurred long before Bill Clinton was around and I'm sure will continue to occur long after he's gone.

Now, I agree that the similarities, the superficial similarities to the impeachment episode are a little bit eerie. I doubt that Shakespeare could design a sequel with more irony. But the notion that Gary Condit is somehow sitting back and looking at the play book, page 13 of the Congressman Condit play book and saying well, what should I do now? I should try to deny the affair, I think, is absurd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRAZIER: Julian Epstein also said that partisan opportunism threatens to further politicize this story, which he says now appears to be, in his words, nothing more than a married man's panicked denials to cover-up an affair.

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