Trump Tried to End 2008 Investigation Into Patriots by Bribing Former Senator With ‘A Lot Of Money’: Report
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According to a detailed report from ESPN, Donald Trump attempted to intervene with a U.S. Senate investigation long before he became president.
In 2008, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter directed his “passion for the truth” at the New England Patriots, with the goal of determining how many NFL games their “Spygate” scandal helped them win. That’s right, the intersection of sports and politics is not a new trend.
Months earlier, New York Jets head coach Eric Mangini, a former assistant with Bill Belichick and the Patriots, turned the New England football team in for illegally videotaping the oppositions signals. After the NFL slapped the Patriots with a couple of fines and stripped them of a first round draft pick, the league destroyed all video evidence and swept their four-day investigation under the rug.
Specter wasn’t satisfied with the league’s brief investigation, and decided to launch a Spygate probe of his own. According to ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham, it wasn’t long before Spector received an interesting offer to leave the Patriots alone.
One day in early 2008, Specter had dinner with the man in Palm Beach at his palatial club, not far from (Patriots owner Robert) Kraft’s Florida home. A phone call followed. The friend offered Specter what the senator felt was tantamount to a bribe: “If you laid off the Patriots, there’d be a lot of money in Palm Beach.”
ESPN states the man was Donald Trump, who was reportedly acting on behalf of Patriots owner Robert Kraft. The information came to ESPN from Specter’s son, Shanin Specter.
Follow-up conversations with the people closest to Arlen Specter — his oldest son, Shanin, a Philadelphia personal injury and medical malpractice attorney, and Charles Robbins, Specter’s trusted longtime communications aide and the ghostwriter of two Specter memoirs — revealed this: The man who dangled campaign cash if Specter were to drop the Spygate inquiry was none other than Donald J. Trump. Not only that: Trump had told Specter he was acting on behalf of Robert Kraft. Kraft and Trump, both responding to ESPN through spokesmen, denied involvement in any effort to influence Specter’s investigation.
According to ESPN, spokespeople for Trump and Kraft both denied any involvement in attempting end Specter’s Spygate investigation.
“This is completely false,” said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump. “We have no idea what you’re talking about.” Miller declined to answer a series of follow-up questions. A Patriots spokesman said Kraft “never asked Donald Trump to talk to Arlen Specter on his behalf.”
“Mr. Kraft is not aware of any involvement of Trump on this topic and he did not have any other engagement with Specter or his staff,” the spokesman said via email.
Kraft, Belichick and even former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady are all known to have a friendship with Trump. Before leaving office, Trump even attempted to honor Belichick with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But with the offer coming days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Belichick politely declined.
