Ann Marie Smith Interview Transcript

N E W   Y O R K, Aug. 28, 2001 -- Flight attendant Anne Marie Smith and her lawyers took legal action against Rep. Gary Condit and his staff on Monday, asking a Stanislaus County, Calif., grand jury to indict them on charges of suborning perjury and obstructing justice for pressing her to deny an alleged affair.

She talked about the case with ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America.

(The following is an uncorrected, unedited transcript.)

ABCNEWS' DIANE SAWYER: Well, there was someone else whose name came up lastnight as it has so often in all of this, and that is Anne Marie Smithwho acknowledged a 10—month relationship with Condit, what she calls arelationship with Condit, he would say. And some of it, in fact, atthe same time, apparently, that he was seeing Chandra Levy. She joins us this morning along with her attorney, Jim Robinson,and we thank you both for coming in this morning.

First of all, I haven't heard what you have to say since theinterview that Congressman Condit gave last week. How did you feelwatching it?

ANNE MARIE SMITH: My initial reaction was I was hurt by what he had to sayand I was very disappointed.

SMITH: I thought that perhaps he would come forth, comeforward as being a little more contrite or sympathetic, apologetictowards the family. And I also felt when I was watching it that itwasn't the same person that I knew.

SAWYER: What do you mean?

SMITH: It wasn't the Mr. Condit that I knew. I mean, he was very tense, nervous.

SAWYER: And ordinarily he would be?

SMITH: Comfortable, you know, relaxed, joking around. He was —I could see anger. I mean, he was very angry.

SAWYER: Somebody said that you felt sorry for him watching it.

SMITH: I did. I really did. I mean, I feel really bad aboutthe position that he's in right now.

SAWYER: How is it possible to feel sorry for him, and then atthe same time to say, "OK, I'm going to move to try to get a criminalindictment against him," which we heard about yesterday? How do thosetwo things compute?

SMITH: The reason I feel very badly for him is because I thinkif he would have been honest and forthcoming in the very beginning, heprobably wouldn't be in the situation that he's in right now. Andhe's taken steps to put himself in this position. He asked me to lie.And if I hadn't had an attorney, I would've perjured myself — I mean,I wasn't aware of the law, and I wanted to keep my name out of themedia. And I would've marched right over there and signed thataffidavit.

SAWYER: So you want to punish him for doing that to you?

SMITH: No, I don't want to punish him at all.

SAWYER: But this is moving for a criminal indictment —criminal.

SMITH: I feel that he has put me in a situation where I can't goback. He put me — I didn't ask to be put in the middle of this wholesituation. And the position that he's put me in, I can't go back now.I can only go forward as far as setting the record straight.

SAWYER: Let me move back to what Chad [Condit's son] said last night, becausehe talked about you, Mr. Robinson, and he talked about the both ofyou. And the implication from his father in the interview was thatyou were going in some way for money. Have you made any money off ofthis at all?

SMITH: No, I was appalled that he even said that in theinterview. I've lost money if anything. I mean, my roommate sold meout to the Star magazine. I was offered a lot of money. I haven'taccepted anything.

SAWYER: Are you angling for a book deal? Is that what you planto do?

SMITH: No, nothing.

SAWYER: Are you saying you will never do a book?

SMITH: I'm working two jobs right now to try to make ends meet.I missed the whole month of July from work. And I'm working two jobs.I'm getting up at about 4:30 in the morning to help my neighbor withhis coffee bar. There is no way I made any money off of this. Imean, the idea is ludicrous. SAWYER: Will you do a book?

SMITH: No.

SAWYER: OK, I want Mr. Robinson to answer, too, to this. ButI'm going to play a little of what Chad said last night because hisimplication was that somehow this is all for publicity. At one point,he even said that Mr. Robinson was doing it to get on Geraldo. Buthere's one of the exchanges with Larry King last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING: By the way, were you angry at the stewardess?

CHAD CONDIT: I don't know the stewardess.

KING: But when you saw her, were you angry?

CONDIT: No.

KING: Not angry.

CONDIT: No, I just know what that's about.

KING: You do?

CONDIT: Well, I mean, it's obvious what it's about. It's notabout finding Chandra Levy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAWYER: Mr. Condit, his attorneys, his family have implying atleast that you have been using the death of Chandra Levy to getpublicity, to be in the public eye.

SMITH: My response to that is, I've had every media outletcontacting me. First of all, they started calling me, and I hid — Imoved away, changed my phone number three or four times, went intohiding — no one could find me. Then they started calling my parents.And so, I mean, as far as publicity goes, if I was out for publicity,I could have taken real advantage of it, and I haven't. I've done twointerviews.

SAWYER: Two interviews — three, Fox, Larry King and a localinterview?

SMITH: No, Fox and Larry King.

SAWYER: No local interview. OK. What about that, Mr. Robinson?And I know the irony of inviting you on television and then asking youto being on television. I recognize that. But what about thisimplication that …

JIM ROBINSON: Geraldo?

SAWYER: Yes.

ROBINSON: I've known Geraldo for 15 years. I don't have to takethis case to go see Geraldo. I can call him up any time I want. So Ithought that was — in fact, I talked to Geraldo about that alreadyand thought it was quite amusing.

SAWYER: I want to ask about the affidavit, because that is whatis involved and what we had here yesterday, what you announced hereyesterday, your move to get a grand jury paneled to consider acriminal indictment of Congressman Condit.

SAWYER: Congressman Condit has said that this was a lawyer—to—lawyer event, that he had nothing to do with it — I'm going to playthat excerpt — and that in fact what happened between lawyers is notasking you to lie on his part. And here's what he said specifically:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

U.S. CONGRESSMAN GARY CONDIT (D—CA): That is a draft statementthat a lawyer sent to another lawyer. I did not have anything to dowith it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAWYER: "I did not have anything to do with that," and yet inyour affidavit, you say there were four phone calls?

SMITH: There were at least three or four phone calls from Mr.Condit. He called me directly from Mr. Cotchett's office, saying itwas a safe phone.

SAWYER: That's his former attorney.

SMITH: His former attorney in San Francisco, saying it was asafe phone and he could talk to me about it, and he was saying, "Well,I don't understand why your attorney will not let you sign it." AndI …

SAWYER: Any question at all that he knew what was in it when hetalked to you?

SMITH: He knew exactly what was in it. And I already knew whatI told the FBI, as far as our relationship, and I knew I could neversign the document.

SAWYER: At one point early on, you indicated that you haddiaries. Do you have diaries of these calls and notes of these callsfrom the time?

SMITH: I have specific dates of phone calls, voice mails that Isaved that I wrote down the dates...

SAWYER: And the content of them?

SMITH: Basically, the content of phone calls. I went backthrough and documented everything.

SAWYER: Tapes?

SMITH: No.

SAWYER: Another thing he has said is that one of the reasons, ifhe was asking you to say there was no relationship, it was not arelationship as he defined it, and specifically to Newsweek — andI'll put that up — he said, "In my opinion, we did not have arelationship. It would probably be her definition of a relationshipversus mine." Is it possible he just didn't see it as a relationship?

SMITH: Perhaps. But the bottom line is, if he admits that hehad a relationship with me, then the affidavit is false, and he'slying about it. If he actually admits that he had a relationship withme, then it proves that the affidavit is false and he was trying tolie about it.

SAWYER: But as we know, people come into situations withdifferent analysis of the seriousness of them. Is it possible hedidn't call that a relationship, it's just a definitional thing?

SMITH: OK, what do you call a relationship? It's, you know,when somebody calls you every day and you see them periodically or,you know, frequently. I have friends that can corroborate the story.It's like I don't understand what he defines as a relationship.

SAWYER: One of the questions raised, Mr. Robinson, was the factthat Anne Marie on three different occasions has given three differentdates for a phone call Condit say's never happened, namely a phonecall which says, to you, saying he might be in trouble, so you shouldstop calling for a while.

SMITH: I actually did not give three different dates. It's beenmisinterpreted by many different people.

SAWYER: I thought in the first one you said May 5 or 6. Thenext one …

SMITH: You know what, I did. And it was actually May 10 that hecalled. It was a Friday afternoon.

SAWYER: And again, you have records showing this?

SMITH: I have records.

SAWYER: OK.

SMITH: And I've also submitted all of my phone records to theDepartment of Justice and the U.S. attorney's office, so that they can— and they have ways of figuring out or finding out where these phonecalls came from.

SAWYER: Another question, you had said that you found long,brown hairs on a bath robe?

SMITH: No, not on a bath robe.

SAWYER: Not on a bath robe?

SMITH: On the floor, the bathroom floor.

ROBINSON: In both bathrooms.

SAWYER: But that you found other things that you couldn't revealbecause they might — and this is a quote — "might be part of acriminal investigation." Can you now say what other things you weretalking about?

SMITH: I'd prefer not to.

SAWYER: Final question to you, Mr. Robinson, if I can. In theNew York Times this morning, the fact that you were joined in thisrequest for a grand jury by Judicial Watch, according to the New YorkTimes says, "adds a decidedly political edge to the case." Is this aRepublican vendetta of some kind — a right wing...

ROBINSON: Absolutely not, murder is nonpartisan.

SAWYER: Murder?

ROBINSON: We're talking about a murder investigation, yes. We're talking about a missing person who hasn't shown up in over 100days. That's, as far as I'm concerned, that's a murder investigation. I was looking for a California criminal attorney. I'm a Washington State civil attorney. And I found Ernie Norris, who is an incredible DA. He's been five times California DA of the year.

SAWYER: So you're saying it's not political?

ROBINSON: I don't care anything about Judicial Watch. I couldcare less about their political past or anything else. I went toErnie Norris.

SMITH: Can I just interject one thing?

SAWYER: Yes.

SMITH: I'm not a Republican.

SAWYER: In fact, I heard you're a Democrat. All right, we thankyou both. Anne Marie Smith, Jim Robinson, thanks a lot for coming inthis morning.

ROBINSON: Thank you.