WASHINGTON, 28 July — What’s going on? Weekly tabloids are suddenly breaking more hot political scoops than any of the mainstream media.
The National Enquirer hit the newsstands yesterday with a report that Congressmen Gary Condit’s wife had a furious phone call with intern Chandra Levy — days before her disappearance.
The Enquirer reports the call between Carolyn Condit and Chandra Levy was discovered by case investigators, and that the missing intern told Mrs. Condit that “Gary” was going to dump her, and start a new life with Levy.
Washington police officials yesterday raced to calm the media frenzy sparked by this supermarket tabloid report, but they would not confirm, or deny, rumors that investigators are seeking an interview with Mrs. Condit regarding the alleged phone call. Police said they have already interviewed Mrs. Condit in the Levy case. They did confirm, however, that Mrs. Condit was in the Washington area when Miss Levy was last seen on April 30.
According to the Enquirer, “Investigators obtained phone records that show a phone call from Condit’s home in California to his apartment in Washington that was over five minutes long.
“Condit said that he did not talk to his wife during that phone call because he was not in the apartment at the time.” (Which one must take with a grain of salt. Condit, it should be remembered, only recently admitted to investigators that he had an affair with Ms. Levy, after having denied the romance for weeks.)
Investigators have pieced together that Chandra was at Conduit’s apartment at the time of the phone call, saw on the caller ID that the incoming call was coming from Condit’s California home, and that Chandra boldly picked up the receiver and that a ‘blow-up call’ ensued.
As a result, Gary Condit is said to have become ‘enraged’ that Levy broke a cardinal rule of his and picked up the phone at his D.C. apartment, and he confronted her over the phone encounter with his wife. It was after this call, apparently, that Carolyn Condit flew to Washington on April 28.
Detectives now want to give Condit’s wife a lie detector test, because, according to a Justice Department source, she is “now being looked at as a key to the whole investigation.”
According to the Enquirer, Mrs. Condit has refused to take the exam. Should the story prove true, this is yet another commendable coup for the tabloids.
Earlier this month, the Star broke the story that Condit also had an affair with an air hostess, and that he tried to persuade her to sigh a statement that they never had a “romantic relationship.”
In January, the National Enquirer broke the story of Jesse Jackson’s illegitimate child. In February, the Enquirer competed with Associate Press to be the first to break the story that Hillary Clinton’s brother, Hugh Rodham, had received $400,000 for his help with two presidential pardons.
Then, showing admirable bipartisanship for any paper, the Enquirer went after the Bush family, revealing that their unfortunate daughter, Jenna, had been caught illegally drinking and possessing marijuana.
Scooping the mainstream media is not new for the tabloids. They overrode the mainstream media with a series of scoops during the O.J. Simpson trial, producing, for example, a picture of Simpson wearing a pair of Bruno Magli shoes that he claimed he never owned.
