Rep. Gary Condit, in a media offensive ending months of public silence, denied any involvement in the disappearance of intern Chandra Levy but refused to say whether he had an affair with her.
In a series of interviews on Thursday and Friday, Condit acknowledged that he and Levy had "a close relationship." Despite repeated questioning, he declined to say if they were having a sexual relationship when she vanished in early May.
"In the interest of my family and the Levy family, I am not going to discuss my relationship (with Levy)," Condit said in an interview in People magazine released on Friday.
"We had a close relationship. I liked her very much," he said in an interview with ABC's "Prime Time Thursday."
The mystery of Levy's disappearance and the nature of her relationship with the married 53-year-old Democratic congressman from California has riveted Americans and brought huge media coverage all summer.
Police have questioned Condit four times and searched his Washington apartment but have said he is not considered a suspect. He has faced calls from newspapers in his home district and some colleagues in Congress to resign.
Condit insisted that Levy's family, who have publicly suggested the congressman is withholding information that might help solve the case, should not suspect his motives.
"They don't have any reason to be suspicious of me. I would never do anything to harm Chandra. And I think it's unfair when they make references to maybe I had something to do with the disappearance. It's not correct," he said in People.
He added that apart from the Levy family, "I'm probably hoping to find Chandra more than anyone else."
ABC correspondent Connie Chung asked Condit during the 30-minute interview why he would not give details publicly about his relationship with Levy.
"I'm entitled to try to retain as much privacy as I can. The Levys are entitled to retain as much privacy on behalf of their daughter as they can. I'm going to honor that," he said.
Asked whether he and Levy were in love, Condit said: "Well, I don't know that she was in love with me. She never said so. And I was not in love with her." He said they never discussed a future or having a family together.
In the People interview, he described Levy as "very nice, very smart, very interested in politics, very interested in her career."
The congressman and the 24-year-old intern met during a visit she made to his office on Capitol Hill. He learned of her disappearance, he said, when Levy's father Robert called the congressman to say that she was missing.
"Just the tone of his voice sent chills running down my spine," said Condit in People. "It made me really fearful that something might have happened to her." He was "hoping that she'd just gone somewhere."
Levy was last seen on April 30 near her apartment in Washington's Dupont Circle neighborhood. She is believed to have used her home computer the next day, but after that there are no traces of her.
Condit told Chung that the last time he saw Levy was at his apartment on April 24 or 25, and the last time he spoke to her in a telephone conversation was on April 29.
"She was very upbeat. This is a person who was looking to the future," he said in the People interview, denying that she ever told him if she was pregnant.
Condit said he had no regrets about his conduct early in the investigation, when he reportedly denied in police interviews having an affair with Levy.
"How can I have any regrets when I have cooperated with all the authorities?" he told People. "I have done everything they've asked me to do. I answered every question that law enforcement asked me in every interview. I answered every question truthfully. I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Chandra Levy."
Condit, a father of two, denied that he lied to the young woman's mother when she asked him whether they had an affair.
"I never lied," he told People. "She named some people who she thought might be involved with Chandra. My name was not mentioned... She asked me about other members of Congress."
In another interview, with Vanity Fair magazine, Condit seemed "quite angry at the Levys," the magazine's contributing editor Judy Bachrach said.
"He said, 'They overstepped the line when they accused me of being suspicious, of acting in a suspicious manner or having anything to do with (her disappearance)'," Bachrach said on CNN's "Larry King Live." She described the interview with Condit as "very, very tense."
The Levys' lawyer, Billy Martin, said he saw nothing new in Condit's comments. "I don't think he's been forthcoming, either tonight or in any of the interviews with the authorities," Martin said on ABC's "Nightline."
On the same program, Condit's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the congressman had no obligation to talk publicly about the details of the relationship.
"You guys in the media think that prime time is a church and Connie Chung is the priest, and you weren't going to be satisfied until on prime time the congressman did his confessional," Lowell said.
