MEDIUM RARE
By Jim Rarey
August 25, 2001
CONDIT INTERVIEW - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Almost all observers and pundits agree that Thursday night’s interview with Connie Chung on ABC was a public relations disaster for Gary Condit. How could that have happened to a seasoned campaigner who has been in politics for thirty years and had the benefit of expert (and expensive) advice from legal and public relations professionals?
Panelists on both network and cable outlet television shows, from across the political spectrum, seem to have arrived at a consensus explanation. First, they postulate (some from alleged "inside" information), there was a conflict between advice from the lawyers and the PR people and the lawyers prevailed. With this the author can agree.
Secondly, they give us two options. Either Condit’s legal team (headed by lead attorney Abbe Lowell) was grossly incompetent, or Condit ignored their advice and tried to do it "his way." This writer rejects both of those choices.
Abbe Lowell is regarded among his peers in elite Washington legal circles as one of the premiere attorneys at combining legal strategy with PR "spin," one of the reasons he was chosen to defend Bill Clinton at the former president’s Senate impeachment trial.
From Condit’s mechanical and repetitive "non-answers" to some of Chung’s questions, it was obvious he was regurgitating memorized statements from a script. It is reasonable to assume that script was prepared by the legal team, which had advised him not to admit to anything.
Following that advice, Condit appeared to be calling a number of people liars including the D.C. police, Mrs. Levy, Chandra’s aunt, Anne Marie Smith, Joline McKay and Chandra herself. The result may have been a nearly complete destruction of Condit’s credibility in the public’s perception casting doubt on his clear and unequivocal denials of having anything to do with Chandra’s disappearance. That may have been the exact result Condit’s legal team desired.
In the author’s article of August 18th entitled "Levy/Condit – Amazing Coincidences" the following statement was made, "This writer does not believe that Condit and his staff requested these lawyers. They were most likely assigned there as a team with a containment strategy to ensure that no mention is made of the CIA/drug and OKC bombing (Timothy McVeigh) subjects in connection with Chandra Levy’s disappearance."
That statement was prompted by the author’s belief that Chandra’s disappearance likely has nothing to do with her affair with the congressman but with "dangerous knowledge" she acquired on her intern job at the Bureau of Prisons.
For this writer, that theory was given added credence with the presence of attorney Beth Wilkinson on the Condit legal team. Wilkinson was involved with the prosecution in both the Noreiga (CIA/drug connection) and Timothy McVeigh (OKC bombing) trials. Her apparent assignment was to keep any reference to government involvement in both subjects out of the public record, at which she was eminently successful. (See the aforementioned article for particulars.)
Chandra Levy was no ordinary intern as developed by this writer in a series of articles. (See list of related articles below available on request to [EMAIL PROTECTED]) By education, training, temperament and resulting from her duties at the Bureau of Prisons, she was in a position to have gained knowledge on one or both of these subjects that made her dangerous to powerful people resulting in her abduction and presumed death.
In this writer’s opinion, Condit’s political career was already irretrievable before the Chung interview, which may explain why Condit went along with such an obvious trashing of his credibility. On the other hand, he may have been made an offer he "couldn’t refuse," either join in the misdirection of public attention or join Chandra.
The day after the ABC interview, Democrat support for Condit started to crumble beginning with the statement of the House Minority leader made Friday morning. That was followed by criticism from Democrat Rep. Cooley from Condit’s neighboring district in California. The minority leader implied that Condit would be removed from his sensitive position on the House Permanent Select House Committee on Intelligence. Expect calls for his resignation from congress to increase from both sides of the aisle.
So what is the likely result of the Condit interviews on TV and in magazines? As counter-attacks are mounted by those maligned by Condit in the interviews, his credibility will sink to even lower depths. The public will suspect (without any evidence) that he was somehow involved in Chandra’s disappearance. A search for such evidence (which may not exist) will divert the public’s attention from what this writer believes should be the focus of investigation. That is Chandra’s contacts and activities at the Bureau of Prisons.
Chandra was involved in making arrangements for journalists covering the execution of Timothy McVeigh. To this writer’s knowledge, none of those journalists have been interviewed by authorities.
Chandra had applied for a permanent full-time job at the FBI before she was unceremoniously fired from her intern job. What was the status of that application at the time of her disappearance? Who did she list as references on her application and who, if anyone gave her letters of recommendation to supply with the application?
What is the real reason for Chandra’s early release from her internship? There is some dissembling going on in the Bureau on that question.
There is little reason to believe the FBI will pursue this avenue with any vigor, particularly in view of the person in charge who also headed the "investigation" of Vince Foster’s mysterious death and labeled it a suicide.
Unfortunately (in the absence of new and startling evidence) the likely ending to the tragedy of Chandra Levy will be a gradually fading from the news until the next sensational scandal hits the headlines when it will then join the ranks of other unsolved Washington mysteries.
Related Articles (in chronological order)
Condit’s Rock and a Hard Place
Condit: The Circling of the Wagons
Chandra’s Dangerous Knowledge
Chandra: Unraveling Government Cover-ups?
Levy/Condit – Amazing coincidences
Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety.
The author is a free lance writer based in Romulus, Michigan. He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution.
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