MSNBC.com reports on the Levy family’s polygraph challenge to Rep. Gary Condit. Excerpt:
July 9 — Rep. Gary Condit will not take a lie detector test as Chandra Levy’s parents are requesting, his lawyer told NBC News on Monday. Abbe Lowell emphasized that investigators are satisfied with the congressman’s responses in three interviews and he urged the media to focus less on Condit and more on the other people who had seen Levy shortly before she vanished on April 30.
“GIVEN WHAT (deputy police) chief (Terrance) Gainer said about the congressman never being a suspect, answering all questions to their satisfaction, there are no questions to test,” Lowell told NBC’s “Today” show. “I think the time has now come to focus a little less on Congressman Condit and focus on the … other people the police have identified, who if they were as cooperative might find leads.”
Lowell sidestepped questions about Condit’s admission that his relationship with Levy had been a romantic one and denied any discrepancies in the Democratic congressman’s statements.
Levy’s parents on Sunday indicated they felt Condit should take a lie detector test to clear up any discrepancies. “The family wants the comfort of knowing that the people who were closest to Chandra are giving complete and truthful information to investigators,” the Washington Post quoted a Levy family spokesman as saying.
Asked a second time about whether Condit would take a test, Lowell said that “if the police said that he was a suspect or there was some discrepancy I would like them to come to me.”