This speaks for itself.... Condit lawyer changes story
Saturday, 25 August 2001 5:57 (ET)
Condit lawyer changes story
WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Rep. Gary Condit's lawyer Abbe Lowell Friday
night told CNN's Larry King that his client, in his TV interview with Connie
Chung Thursday, did not mean to say "No" to categorically rule out a link to
a flight attendant who claimed a long-time affair.
Lowell added Condit did not consider he had a "relationship" with Anne
Marie Smith.
"I know it came out like a flat denial and I think one of those things I
can do is clear it up," Lowell said on the "Larry King Live" program.
"Look," Lowell continued, "the exchange was going hot and heavy at that
point and she was asking about the affidavit and she was asking about
lawyers, and then, did you have a relationship?
"And I think the 'No' came out and the 'No' may not have applied to what
it looks like it applied to," Lowell said.
Smith, who had appeared on King's program three weeks ago, said she would
do no more interviews and that she was not making any money from the reports
of her relationship with Condit over several years.
Lowell attacked her motives, saying, "Condit and all the people around him
are befuddled about why folks like Anne Marie Smith and others are using the
tragedy of Chandra Levy to get publicity in some cases."
Lowell did not define what Smith and Condit were doing together but, he
said, the congressman did not consider it a "relationship."
"Now Anne Marie Smith may have considered whatever her dealings with
Congressman Condit to be quote 'a relationship,' Lowell said, "and what
Congressman Condit was trying to say was, whatever their dealings were,
whatever they shared, whatever they were to each other, it wasn't a
relationship."
The critique of the interview by House Minority Leader -- and fellow
Democrat -- Richard Gephardt suggested Condit may have new problems with the
party leadership once he returns to Capitol Hill after the August recess.
Gephardt in the past had been supportive of Condit and said he believed
the congressman had cooperated in the search for Levy.
Gephardt told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Friday that "I do not believe he
was candid and forward" in the ABC interview. "He stayed in this zone of
being evasive. ... I didn't hear candor, I didn't hear an apology."
Gephardt said he would talk to House colleagues about what steps to take
-- and that might include making Condit relinquish his seat on the important
House Intelligence Committee."
"What he said last night was disturbing and wrong," Gephardt said. "I
think it fell way short. It all adds to the general perception that politics
are no-good and politicians are a bunch of bums."
Levy, an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, disappeared May 1 from
Washington's Dupont Circle area, a few days before she was scheduled to
return to California.
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Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
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