Say this for Martin: the Levy/Condit story sure got a lot more interesting once he joined the fray as the Levys' public point man in late June. Within days of Martin's arrival, the press was suddenly reporting intriguing, thinly sourced stories, like the news that Condit forced Chandra to leave all I.D. behind when she met with him. (That was a tantalizing tidbit, since the police say she left her I.D. behind in her apartment the day she disappeared.) Also reporters were suddenly chewing over the tasty nugget that perhaps Chandra was pregnant when she disappeared, which was the closest anyone could come to creating a motive for the congressman wanting to have his young lover killed.
Who fanned both rumors? Martin and his "investigators," two retired D.C. detectives. Turns out that the police handling the case no longer think either story is true and, not surprisingly, continue to insist, as they have all along, that Condit is not a suspect in Levy's disappearance.
Has a single reporter grilled Martin about his penchant for fictionalizing the Levy saga? Not yet. Instead, it seems the press, in love with the Condit story, has done everything it can to disregard Martin's flip-flops.
The lonely task of scrutinizing Martin's strategy has fallen to the Daily Howler, manned by media critic Bob Somerby. For instance, on the question of Chandra's pregnancy, according to the Daily Howler the first public mention of that scenario came on July 6, when the New York Daily News reported "investigators working for the Levy family" were "considering the possibility that Levy, 24, could have been pregnant."
It's important to note that the family investigators came as part of the package deal when the Levys hired Martin, who himself has routinely referred to them as "my investigators." And in early July, Martin's investigators, based on nothing but a voice-mail message Chandra left her aunt regarding some "big news," floated the trial balloon that Chandra was pregnant at the time of her disappearance.
Appearing on the CBS "Early Show" days later, Martin was asked by co-host Jane Clayson about the possibility of a pregnancy. Martin played it coy, suggesting he didn't want to harm the investigation, so therefore he could not say whether it was yes or no. Clayson asked pointblank, "You know the answer"? Martin said he did know.
Five days later he forgot.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Martin was asked by host Tim Russert about a possible pregnancy. Suddenly the answer was a mystery. Again, citing an ongoing investigation as the reason he couldn't be more specific, Martin simply changed his answer, telling Russert, "We do not yet have a final answer on that."
The notoriously well-prepped "Meet the Press" host should have known that earlier in the week Martin offered a drastically different answer on CBS. Russert simply let it slide. The pregnancy story now had legs, and played out all summer on cable TV.
And Martin fanned it every chance he could. He later told CNN's Roger Cossack the pregnancy question represented "a crucial piece of this investigation."
Cossack, like Clayson and Russert before him, asked Martin if he personally knew the answer to the pregnancy question. Offering his third version, the attorney said he couldn't even answer that question.
Back on CBS in late August, Bob Schieffer queried Martin about the possibility of a Chandra pregnancy. (See a pattern here?) Martin was sticking to his latest version ("I don't think I can answer that question"), but not before darkly spelling out the possible implications of the press's favorite game of what-if: "Could she have been pregnant and could something have been done to her in an attempt to abort the pregnancy? Could that have been an issue between the congressman and Chandra?"
Yet while Martin was out spinning, the Levys seemed to be telling anyone who would listen that they didn't believe the pregnancy story. For instance, on Aug. 15, Larry King asked the parents if they thought Chandra was pregnant. Dr. Levy's response: "No." Finally some reporters ventured off script and found some other sources. On Aug. 24, CNN's Bob Franken reported "The hard facts from the police: There is, quote, no indication she was pregnant."
The same day, Vanity Fair's Judy Bachrach, making the TV rounds following her interview with the Levys, reported conclusively, "[Chandra] was not pregnant. Her own mother says Chandra Levy was not pregnant at the time of her disappearance. She had just had her period a week or two before her disappearance ... [The mother and daughter] had it at the same time, and they had it over Passover [April 14], when the daughter was visiting."
How could the fact that Chandra was not pregnant at the time of her disappearance possibly represent, "a crucial piece of this investigation," as Martin had suggested all summer? Why didn't the Levys ever step in and tell their lawyer to stop spinning that sinister tale if they knew it to be false? And why didn't the press pick up on the obvious discrepancies?
Next page: Did Condit withhold facts from the cops, or didn't he?
