Sunday, July 16, 2006
 In the summer of 2001, the hot story in Washington was the dead intern, Chandra Levy, a paramour of Congressman Gary Condit. One of Condit's best friends in Congress was Rep. Joe Scarborough. He had young dead female aide turn up dead in July, and left Congress just four days before 9/11. The story resurfaced when Scarborough's name was being mentioned in relation to the U.S. Senate election from Florida this year.
Scarborough has threatened more than one person who finds the death suspicious with a lawsuit over the years; but has never followed through.
From Miami Herald July 14, 2006: "It was Joe Scarborough, host of the prime-time MSNBC show Scarborough Country and a former Pensacola Republican congressman who was courted last summer by national Republicans to run against Harris. But before he could announce he wouldn't, Harris called major donors and suggested Scarborough would have to answer questions about the strange death of a former staff member in 2001, according to two former high-level Harris staff members, a GOP donor and Scarborough.
[...]
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, head of Republican senatorial campaigns, approached Scarborough to run because he was one of the few who could match Harris' star power and fundraising in a Republican primary.
Scarborough, Dornan and Rollins gave the same account: The TV personality called the political aides privately to say he wasn't running -- his son didn't want him to -- though he needed a few days to tell supporters personally of the decision before it was publicized.
Not fast enough for Harris, who called donors like Pensacola developer Collier Merrill. Merrill told The Miami Herald that Harris suggested Scarborough was going to have trouble when ''they start asking questions . . . about that dead girl,'' Fort Walton Beach staff member Lori Klausutis.
[Harris' ex-campaign manager Jim] Dornan said he overheard Harris tell more than one donor: ``I don't know what he's thinking when he's got this whole issue of a dead intern on his hands.''
Klausutis, 28, was a Scarborough staff member who died July 20, 2001, when she hit her head after experiencing heart arrhythmia, according to a medical examiner's report, news reports and family members. Echoing the official findings, one family member told The Miami Herald there was no foul play.
But some observers sought to make Klausutis' death a political issue, comparing it to the Chandra Levy intern scandal tied to former California Democratic Rep. Gary Condit.
[...]
----- More background
- Here
- Here
- And here
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