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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: The Chandra Levy Disappearance

Aired July 14, 2001 - 09:33   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, on our "Reporter's Notebook" this morning, we want to read some of the e-mails that you've sent us already on the Chandra Levy case.

BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: And Bob Franken rejoins us now from Washington to help answer your questions.

PHILLIPS: Hi, Bob.

NELSON: Hi, Bob, good morning.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello. Good morning.

NELSON: All right. You want to take the first one?

PHILLIPS: Sure. We're going to begin with an e-mail from Sally Gary, and this is her question, Bob. "Why did police Condit -- contact Condit one week after Levy's disappearance if he wasn't a suspect?"

FRANKEN: Well, of course, it was known that he knew Chandra Levy. He had contacted officials, as a matter of fact, and asked to get the FBI involved in the case, has contributed reward money. So it would naturally follow that the police would contact him to ask what he knew.

NELSON: All right, Bob, here's the next one. It's from Peter Rice from Sarasota, Florida. He writes, "Contrary to the Democrat Party talking points that only the voters in Condit's district can remove him, and only in the next election, the U.S. House of Representatives can and should remove Condit."

Your observation?

FRANKEN: That is correct, the part about the can remove him. Of course, it would be up to somebody else to decide whether he should be removed. That would be a process that starts with the Ethics Committee. And as we heard, a letter has been sent to the Ethics Committee by Congressman Bob Barr, who seems to specialize in this kind of thing, and he has asked for a House ethics investigation.

Normally when there is a police investigation, the Ethics Committees of the House and Senate defer to the criminal investigation, or in this case, missing persons investigation until it is complete. They don't want to get in the way.

NELSON: All right.

PHILLIPS: This one comes from Cleveland, Ohio, T. Austin has this question, "It's difficult for me to decide which is more disgusting, the act of adultery by U.S. Representative Gary Condit or the mean-spirited attack against him by U.S. Representative Bob Barr."

FRANKEN: Am I supposed to answer which one?

PHILLIPS: Exactly. Maybe you can comment slightly on both.

FRANKEN: First of all -- well, first of all, let me just make sure that I supplement what I just said a moment ago. There is some question whether what the Congressman Condit has done or not done, for that matter, there's so much in dispute, would qualify for a House Ethics Committee investigation.

As for what he has done, the one thing that we do know that he did is that he told police sources about a week ago, told police investigators, according to sources, that he did in fact have the romantic relationship with Chandra Levy, and we do know that at his direction, for several weeks his staff people said it wasn't so.

That's what we know.

PHILLIPS: Bob...

NELSON: We should point out that Bob Barr is going after Condit because of his earlier diversions, when he was confronted with this whole issue by the police.

FRANKEN: And there's some question about whether this would really qualify as a House Ethics investigation. There's one sort of catch-all, by the way, and that is bringing Congress into disrepute. And there are those skeptics who've always said that's kind of difficult to do.

PHILLIPS: To this...

NELSON: There could be a lot at stake there.

PHILLIPS: I'm just wondering, when you ask that, Bob, to this day, have any politicians stepped forward and shown their public support of Gary Condit? Has that happened yet?

FRANKEN: Oh, yes, there have been some who have said that he -- at least to the extent they're saying he at least needs a break. He needs to be left alone, he needs to have his privacy, the privacy of his family, protected. And then normally that's accompanied by somebody saying, But he has to be totally honest with authorities, and he has to cooperate in finding Chandra Levy.

To be perfectly honest about it, the public sentiments of support early on were matched by private, private conversations that they would have in the -- on the floor, on the House floor and places like that. But of course now people are saying, Wait a minute, here, we're a little nervous about this.

NELSON: All right. Let's take a call from Robert in Washington, D.C. Robert, go ahead with your question.

CALLER: Is it not a fact that the -- yes, I'm your famous Robert. Is it not a fact that the media has focused more on the relationship rather than on the effort to find Ms. Levy?

FRANKEN: Well, you know, it's an interesting point. The answer, of course, is yes. But the fact of the matter is that this probably would have been only a missing persons investigation in terms of media coverage had it not been for all the attention focused on the relationship between Chandra Levy and Congressman Condit.

And I will point out that that was a focus that was encouraged by the Levy family.

PHILLIPS: Bob, here's a question from Florida from N.J. Ryder. I remember you and I talking about this last week when the police retrieved medical records of Chandra Levy. It says, "It's been mentioned that Levy might be pregnant. That could be the case, and Gary Condit could have sent her out of the country at his expense."

FRANKEN: Well, I suppose that's possible, with one little problem. The police are adamant when they say they have no indications that Chandra Levy was pregnant. As a matter of fact, when they inspected her apartment, they found evidence that she probably wasn't pregnant. So they say over and over again, they do not believe that Chandra Levy was pregnant.

NELSON: All right, here's another e-mail for us. It comes from Garry Miller. He says, "If Mr. Condit is telling the truth, and he didn't have anything to do with her disappearance, I think that everyone in this story will feel pretty foolish a year from now for going on national TV to point a finger at the wrong person." And boy, I think there's some fertile ground there. Bob, go ahead.

FRANKEN: Well, that's certainly the fondest hope of Congressman Gary Condit. What has happened here is that in the process of the investigation into the Chandra Levy disappearance, Congressman Condit in the eyes of many got very bad advice on how to handle this publicly, and what information he could give and could not give. And the police believe that in not being totally forthcoming at the beginning, they may have slowed things down.

But now, of course, the information has come out, and Congressman Condit now is the subject of scorching media investigations that many people believe are not really relevant here.

NELSON: Can I ask you a question? Does he, by taking his own polygraph, take some of the heat off him, or does it just intensify it?

FRANKEN: Well, that's the strategy. He did take his own polygraph. The police say that in doing so with his independent expert doing it, as qualified as this person is, that he had control over the questions he was asked. Now, Abbe Lowell, his attorney, said that the relevant questions were the ones that were asked, but the police say they need control, they need to have the advantage of all the facts at their disposal, all the contacts at their disposal, and the ability to ask the good tough follow-up questions.

NELSON: The follow-up questions are the important thing. All right.

PHILLIPS: And he had time to prepare for it too, right, Bob?

FRANKEN: Well, again, I have to put this in another perspective. I've talked to any other law -- many lawyers, who said, had Abbe Lowell not done this, given him a private polygraph first before allowing him to be tested in any other ways, he'd have probably been guilty of malpractice, legal malpractice. You have to protect your client. Remember, that is the number one job of the attorney.

NELSON: OK, Bob, we got one last call for you from Joe in Georgia. Go ahead, Joe.

CALLER: All right, yes, Bob, there's been some criticism of the police. What's your opinion? Do you think the police has done the proper job? Shouldn't they have called Condit in earlier and investigate him instead of waiting for so long? What's your opinion on that?

FRANKEN: Well, with -- there are people who are critical of the police. The police say that this is a missing persons case, and sometimes people are missing for a long, long time, that they've done far and away more than they would normally do, that anybody would normally do in a missing persons case. They also would say that they called Congressman Condit in pretty quickly and have interviewed him three times.

So they would defend themselves in saying they're going above and beyond.

NELSON: All right, the Chandra Levy case continues, of course, and we thank our CNN's Bob Franken for coming in on a Saturday morning to share his views with us. Thanks, Bob.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Bob.

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