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February 3, 2008

Specter to continue investigation into Spygate

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., didn't let the fact that today is Super Bowl Sunday stop his crusade against the Patriots and the National Football League.

In fact, he stepped it up.

Specter announced on ESPN's Outside The Lines that he will summon NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to his Congressional office Tuesday morning, and that Senate hearings could result from his investigation.

"It could go to hearings," Specter said. "This is a matter to be considered by the [Senate Judiciary] Committee. I don't want to make any broad assertions or elevate it beyond what I have a factual basis for doing. We're going to follow the facts and if warranted, there could be hearings."

Goodell said on ESPN Radio's Mike And Mike In The Morning he would be happy to meet with Specter, though he again denied the league was involved in a coverup of the Patriots' activities.

"People are implying that this is some type of cover up," Goodell said. "... I think it's exactly the opposite. We were the ones who brought these facts out to light. We were the ones who took the unprecedented discipline to send a very strong message to people [to] don't violate the rules. And I think that's what we want. We want every team playing on a level playing field and I think that's what we have."

In related news . . .

-- Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul blasted Specter's actions, calling it a case of ''big government . . . once again [inserting] itself into the lives and private business of American citizens.'' Paul said if he were president, the government would not run ''investigations into how a private company resolved a private matter.''

-- Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was among those noting that the Comcast cable system -- the second-largest contributor to Specter's last election campaign -- is in battle with the NFL over getting the NFL Network placed on Comcast's basic cable system. Specter, Collier noted, has intervened politically on Comcast's behalf in this fight before. More than one blogger (including this one, who calls Specter ''a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast'') is commenting on the Specter-Comcast connection as an explanation not only for Specter's actions, but his timing.

-- ESPN.com's investigative reporter Mike Fish, who earlier talked to ex-Patriots assistant and Rhode Island native Matt Walsh, has another long piece about Spygate in which Drew Bledsoe is quoted liberally. Bledsoe says he knew nothing about any taping the Pats may have done before Super Bowl XXXVI, when he was still with the team, but adds:

"Listen, that kind of stuff has been going on for as long as there have been video cameras. I know people are trying to make this out like this is some huge scandal, but it is at every level. You talk about college, you talk about high school -- people are taping stuff, and that is what they do. And they try and gain an advantage that way."

Posted by Art Martone  at 12:46 PM | Permalink