Condit Watch
A daily news digest of Washington’s latest sex-and-lies scandal.

Compiled by Jaime Sneider
August 2, 2001 11:40 a.m.

he New York Daily News among others is reporting that a tip received through California website We Tip suggests Chandra is buried under a parking lot at Fort Lee, Virginia. The Army, FBI, and even the D.C. police (who were seen at a nearby Toys R' Us giddily buying detective kits) scurried to confirm the accuracy of the anonymously submitted letter. "Two things struck investigators: The parking lot was under construction when Levy vanished May 1, and the organization that took the tip said it was unusual." The three-page tip was single-spaced and provides great detail as to how she was killed. The Daily News quotes head of We Tip, Miriam Brownell, who has 28 years of experience in anonymous tips, as saying "This looks like a very definitive tip."

Will Fox News psychics change their testimony? Having probably assumed initially that Chandra was buried in the park whose website she had visited just hours before disappearing, the psychics said they could see marsh and trees. Let's see if they stick to their guns or start claiming they see asphalt.

As it turns out, "D.C. police are solving violent crimes at a higher rate than they were before Chandra Levy disappeared three months ago." A Washington Post story using statistics demonstrates that homicides occurring since May have a 40% closure rate compared to the annual average of 30%. This story shouldn't be too surprising to anyone familiar with of the Law of Retardation. If each D.C. police officer assigned to a case lowers the probability of it being solved, then it so follows, lots of D.C. police officers equals unsolved crime. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey outlines a corollary of this brilliant theorem in the Post, observing, "If a crime-scene officer has to search Condit's apartment, then sure, he's not doing something else. The question is, does that not doing something else cripple, stop, impede some other ongoing issue?" Moreover, the absence of D.C. police officers apparently facilitates crime solving.

The New York Post reports during his fourth interview with investigators, "Rep. Gary Condit was unable to recall all of his activities on the day Chandra Levy disappeared." "Law enforcement officials said the congressman's fourth grilling…failed to clear up a few lingering questions about his whereabouts on May 1." The timeline distributed by his lawyers stated Condit had met for drinks with a lady friend the day the 24-year-old intern disappeared. As it turns out, that meeting actually occurred the next day.

Apparently, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is incapable of forgiving Condit for lying to her about the nature of his relationship with Chandra Levy. USA Today quotes her as saying there is nothing "[Condit] can do to regain his credibility." She went on to say, "He said he did not have a romantic relationship with her. He lied to me, and that's something I just can't forgive." Feinstein certainly has had a change of heart since her beloved Clinton days. It was all of three years ago, but she might recall Bill Clinton, a person she ardently defended, who not only lied to the American people about having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, but lied under oath in a court of law.

And in an excellent column in the New York Press, Christopher Caldwell sheds light on a few items of interest that have escaped widespread attention. He details the "Mafia-like relationship that Condit has with his top staffers, particularly Mike Lynch in his Modesto office and Mike Dayton in Washington, both of whom could now face charges for obstruction of justice." Caldwell reports it was Dayton who drove Condit to Alexandria to junk the watch from his ex-girlfriend/adulterer, Joleen McKay. And more interesting, "Dayton seems to have procured McKay for Condit in the first place. Dayton and McKay had a relationship in college, and Dayton introduced her to his boss by arranging for the three of them to go out for dinner, and then not showing up."

Caldwell also documents another instance when Condit's worrisome participation on the Intelligence Committee was called into question, this time it was Dick Gephardt, the man responsible for Condit's placement on the committee, who was interrogated. "Well, we've had other cases here where members have been through an ethics investigation and no one has claimed that they should step aside. When Speaker Gingrich was in a long ethics process a few years ago, he was privy to all the information that 's secret in our country…" Adding his own spin, Caldwell writes, "Yeah, some people take excessive book advances, and some whack their girlfriends. Live and let live."