NEWSWEEK: What message did you not get across in your interview with Connie Chung?
GARY CONDIT: There were a couple of areas. First of all, I would like to have been clear how disheartened and heartbroken I am that it’s been four months and we haven’t been able to find Chandra. I would have liked to have been able to make a statement about that.
What kind of statement?
I feel very saddened and heartbroken that we have gone four months and that we spent a lot of effort, time, and we haven’t been able to come up with any major leads or find out where she’s gone. It saddens me that that’s occurred that way. The other thing was the Levys-my heart goes out to the Levys. I have a tremendous amount of empathy for them. I don’t know exactly how it feels, because I don’t think anyone would know that doesn’t have a missing child, but I do have kids and I know that I would say and do about everything to get them back.
How does it feel to be in this kind of antagonistic relationship with them? They clearly have a great deal of anger towards you.
Well, I get that. It’s an awkward situation because I’ve heard them say a couple of things that bother me. One is that they are suspicious of me and that bothers me greatly because I liked Chandra very much and I would never have done anything to hurt her. Next to them, and probably her family, I’m the next person in line that would like to see her returned. So I’m saddened and surprised by and very sorry that they have that attitude and suspicion. The other thing that I think that Dr. and Mrs. Levy say that’s completely unfair is when they make reference to the implication that I might have had something to do with the disappearance. That’s just totally unfair and untrue. And when they [say] that I’m withholding information that might be helpful in locating Chandra, it’s unfair and untrue. It bothers me greatly.
Do you feel you have something to apologize for about the nature of your relationship with Chandra?
If I hurt-if I hurt someone unintentionally or intentionally, I’m sorry, I apologize for that.
You say, ‘If I hurt someone.’
Right.
But you know what the circumstances are. Are you sorry? And if so, what are you sorry for?
Well, some people aren’t hurt and some people are, so for the people I hurt, I’m sorry. That’s how I qualify it. It’s basically all I can say. Now, I do say to you that I’m not one of these guys who wear his emotions on his sleeve. I’m not–I’ve never been perceived as a sappy kind of guy. I have emotions and I hurt just like everybody else. I may display them a little bit differently. I hurt inside just like other people.
But you had to have some fear as well about the political fallout.
To be honest with you, my major focus was to be helpful in finding Chandra.
You did not foresee–
No, I didn’t foresee that. I didn’t foresee any adversarial relationship with Dr. and Mrs. Levy. I did not anticipate that. I thought we were sort of on the same page and our objective was to do what we could to find Chandra. I was totally focused on finding Chandra…. There were political advisors that said, you know, you’ve got to distance yourself from this thing. You’ve got to get out there and do a denial or do a confession, do a big deal. I didn’t buy into that. I mean, that was the political solution. I thought the practical solution was to do everything you can do to be helpful to law enforcement people and be as cooperative as you can be and not fall into the trap of doing a media circus and being part of a daily report to the media about what’s going on and what is not going on.
I gather from what [Condit’s attorney] Abbe Lowell said last night on ‘Nightline,’ that police did ask you whether or not you had an intimate relationship with Chandra in the first interview and you asked whether that was relevant.
Correct.
And they said–
Well, I’m not going to go into the information, but the first interview wasn’t the only interview.
You said last night [to Chung] that you had two reasons for not wanting to acknowledge the nature of the relationship and one was a specific request from the Levy family. [Their attorney] Billy Martin couldn’t have been more explicit last night and today, that the Levy’s have no objection to you confirming the nature of your relationship. And Lowell himself said last night that certainly the nature of the relationship would be relevant to any investigation into what happened to the missing persons. Given that, can you explicitly acknowledge what the nature of your relationship was?
I’ll answer the question. First of all, Billy Martin sort of turns on a dime whenever it’s to his convenience. I mean, when it doesn’t work out for him he says one thing and he wants us to do another thing tomorrow and when I answer it this way, he’ll want it done that way. I’m not really sure what Mr. Martin is after. But we did what he had requested two months ago. I mean, it’s explicit that he wanted us to be discrete on our answer on behalf of Levy family.
If he’s changed that today–
This still doesn’t take away the fact that I’m going to use the same phrase that I used last night. I’ve been married 34 years. I’m not a perfect man. I’ve made my mistakes, but out of respect for my family, I’m not going to get into the details of my relationship with Chandra.
This is the question everybody seems to get hung up over.
Which seems to be really a misfortune because it’s really not the thing people should get hung up over. It’s about a missing person. I mean, the details of the relationship is not the main issue here. It’s about a missing person. And I will concede to you and Abbe and to Mr. Martin as well that the details of the relationship are relevant to the police.
You mentioned I think the last time you saw her was [April] 24 or 25.
Actually, I don’t know if it was the 24th. That’s my understanding.
But she came to your apartment that morning.
Right.
How did she come to come to your apartment? How was that meeting set up?
Well, she knew I was there because we were working late. I went in late that day and that’s why I think it might have been the 24th.
Had there been a prior–
I can’t recall. Maybe we talked earlier. I would have thought she would have been at work. I may have said I was going in late. She buzzes the door. She comes in and then we start to talk. So that’s basically–
But you were expecting her?
No, I was surprised to see her because I figured she’d be at work. This was the time she told me that she had lost her prospects on the job with the Bureau of Prisons.
So it was a surprise visit?
Yes.
Prior to that, when was the previous visit?
I can’t recall. I mean, a couple of days before that maybe.
At your apartment?
Well, no, it wouldn’t have been–because I was gone.
ABBE LOWELL: Actually, that would have been two or three weeks before.
CONDIT: Yeah, that’s right because I was gone most of April and the first of April I had family in town and so we didn’t–I did not see her. It was the first time I’d seen her in probably three weeks.
You said last night that there were no frantic phone calls in the last week. The cell phone records do reflect that…. But they do show seven calls in the first ten days of April.
To my voice service, because she only had the number of my voice service. She didn’t have my private number. She didn’t have my cell number, nor do she have my pager. It would not be unusual to call my voice service.
She didn’t have your home phone number?
No.
She didn’t have your cell number or private number?
LOWELL: He doesn’t carry a cell number except for now.
CONDIT: I have to now.
Was there any issue [between you at] that time?
I never had a cross word with her. The kind of conversation we had would be–[when Timothy] McVeigh was executed and Juan Garza was executed. She seemed to have a lot of interest in those two things and a lot of more interest in them than I did. So she would talk about that.
You talked about McVeigh–
Yeah, because she was part of–she had something to do with distribution of information…. She might have called and said, ‘Hey, I read they are building a new federal prison down in your district and they are going to employ 350 people,’ and blah, blah, blah. And I might call her back and she might share information with me…. She read all the local newspapers on the Internet. She might call up and say, ‘What’s going on with that crazy mayor in Modesto? He sounds nuts. Let’s talk about it.’ So I know that may sound sort of mundane to you, but that’s sort of the way the conversations took place. There was really no heavy–I mean, we might get into a philosophical discussion about Israel or foreign aid or something like that, but that was pretty unusual.
But how about personal stuff, her personal life, her private life?
She was very focused on her career–actually, I was advising her to slow down a little bit and not push herself so hard in terms of whether she had to make a decision about going to law school or she wanted to go to work for the FBI or CIA. We talked about that, but she was very focused on her career and what she was going to do. I actually thought that, which I think she thought, too, when she came and told me that morning that she had lost her possibility to get a job, she thought the next job that opened up she was going to get.
And did you want her to come back to D.C.?
I wanted her to do what she wanted to do.
Right. But if hers was a friendship you really valued….
I’m from California, so if she lived in California, I come to California every weekend. I have friendships all over the country. It wasn’t that kind of deal.
How long was she there that morning?
Um, maybe an hour-and-a-half.
It has been reported that you were asked by the police if you were intimate with her that morning.
Well, that’s unnamed sources. I’m not going to respond to any of the unnamed sources.
If I ask you that directly–
You’re going to get the same response. I’m not going to respond to the unnamed sources.
Did you have plans to see her again after that?
After what?
After that visit on the 24th?
Oh, you mean before she left?
Before she left or when she was out in California.
Oh, yeah, we never–there was never a thought that we weren’t going to stay in contact or see each other. One way or another. That was a friendship. We were going to maintain the friendship no matter–it was a friendship.
Were there specific plans?
No.
How do you account for the very dramatic difference between the way [Chandra’s aunt] Lynne Zamsky describes what Chandra told her about the relationship with you and your perception of it as being a much more casual, you know, unemotional–
I wouldn’t say unemotional. Every friendship you have some emotional ties to the relationship. You have some emotional ties. I can only say that I have heard some of the things that Lynne has said and it’s not correct. It’s just not correct. The one that brings to mind is the one about this elaborate scheme of how you get around and that I would ask someone not to carry identification is just totally absurd. The police–they know that Chandra every time she went somewhere, she has a bag or a backpack. They know that to be the case, so it’s just totally absurd that they would suggest that I would ask someone to not carry identification. For the life of me I can’t even think what reason that would be for.
How about going out of your apartment building separately so that people didn’t see the two of you together, go to restaurants?
First of all, we didn’t go out to restaurants. I think we had dinner possibly one time and I met her at [the restaurant] Tryst. That’s the only time I can remember going out to dinner and she met me there. I’ve been to dinner with several people, females at Tryst.
How about in your apartment, did you ever eat there?
I might have brought something home, but by the time I got home from work it was 9:30. You know how late we work. So I had already been to dinner or she had already been to dinner if I was going to see her or have any discussion with her.
So that was it, just one time after dinner?
Right. The whole time that I can recall. I can recall that, but never out in the suburbs or sneaking around like Lynne has suggested. That’s just–
All right. Anne Marie Smith. You told Connie Chung last night that you didn’t have a relationship with her and when asked why she would say you did, you made reference to the allure of money and publicity. Is that correct? Does that reflect what you meant to say?
Well, what I meant to say–and we’re moving pretty fast here. What I meant to say was I don’t know what Anne Marie thought she had with me, but in my opinion we did not have a relationship. And when I talked about the people who sort of take advantage of the tragedy for publicity purposes or financial purposes, I had been told by several people that she had benefited financially. And I’m puzzled to this day why she would involve herself in this issue when she didn’t know Chandra Levy.
You said you’ve been told by several people that she had benefited financially. Do you know that to be the case?
I only know that as hearsay.
Do you regret having said it–telling people last night on national television that Anne Marie had gotten money?
I can only say that that’s what I’ve been told and if it’s not correct, I regret saying that.
Has anybody at the White House talked to you about the difficulties you’ve found yourself in?
Yes, but I prefer not to go into that.
Have they offered advice?
No.
Encouragement?
A pat on the back or hang in there.
Because they always saw you as somebody who was a potentially important ally in the House for them.
Right. I still am.
How do you feel about the speculation that has been widely disseminated about you?
I regret it very much. I feel bad about it. I think it’s unfair and I feel very bad about it and I think frankly the news media has a lot to do with the speculation and the attitude of people that I had something to do with this. I mean, I just think the way they’ve reported this has created–they want to be judge and jury. It makes you sort of question this basic principle we have in this country that you’re innocent until proven guilty.
Is it personally painful?
Yes, it’s personally–I regret it. First of all, I’m not this kind of guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve. I’m not a sappy kind of guy, but I mean, I hurt just like everybody else.
You said last night on the local interview you thought the media had something to apologize for.
Yeah, I do. I think the misinformation that they put out, the accusations that they’ve made with unnamed sources, with innuendoes, hearsay…. It’s still a principled position that we should not run out and do a news conference every time you guys snap your fingers. The press is not entitled to know everything about my private life or about any member of Congress’s private life. There are things you’re not entitled to.
The thing that makes this different is a missing person, so I did exactly what every American citizen should do and that is cooperate with law enforcement to do what you can do to be helpful. They have the job of finding Chandra Levy. You are not the church, you are not the court and I’m not obligated to hold a news conference with you every day and tell you what I did or didn’t do today. I know you think that sounds unpolitical Most politicians would probably do it different.
I sat there for the whole time waiting for Connie Chung to ask me something other than the sex question. She went on for 20 minutes hounding me on privacy matters where the American people clearly understand privacy. They want to protect their privacy. I don’t think everybody wants to know every private detail of other people’s lives. I think the press has sort of made this into a soap-box scandal to try to keep their ratings up. I think people clearly understand that people have a right to their privacy.
