WASHINGTON – While his colleagues debate whether he should be kicked off the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Gary Condit is spending his first days back at work on Capitol Hill acting as though he’s a deep-cover spy on the run.
The California Democrat has not been seen at his apartment in D.C. and is believed to be staying elsewhere.
Condit also hasn’t shown up at his congressional office, instead working out of a special hideaway office next to the House members’ gym in the bowels of the Capitol complex, sources said.
Condit even used evasive tactics that would make James Bond proud to slip into Washington unnoticed earlier this week.
Sources said Condit left his Ceres, Calif., home on Saturday to get to Washington for his first votes on Wednesday. Daughter Cadee would not disclose how he traveled across the country, saying on CNN’s “Larry King Live” only that he didn’t fly in an airplane.
An exhausted-looking Condit yesterday was spotted by reporters going up an escalator with a colleague in the Capitol subway system.
On Wednesday, Condit was one of the first to appear in the House chamber for a series of procedural votes where he was seen exchanging pleasantries with a couple of colleagues.
It’s been 130 days since intern Chandra Levy went missing, and Condit, who admitted to cops that he had an affair with his 24-year-old constituent, still can’t shake the white-hot spotlight despite the massive p.r. blitz launched in advance of his return to Capitol Hill.
His secretive behavior, mainly aimed at avoiding the mass of TV cameras trying to follow his every move, is a far cry from the “business as usual” posture promised by his chief of staff, Mike Lynch, in advance of his return to work. Condit is said to have spent most of yesterday on the phone “reaching out” to fellow members of the House as he debates whether or not to seek re-election – a decision that could come within a month.