Arlen Specter to Stand Strong Against Illegal Spying -- In the NFL

This post was originally published on 2/2/08

This is rich. Arlen Specter has spent the last few years trying to be the Senate's voice of reason when it comes to the government eavesdropping -- and that voice has continually reasoned that everyone should do everything Bush and Cheney and Co. want, including giving immunity to law-breaking telecom companies.

Not satisfied of being an impotent toadie of the Bush Administration, however, Specter now wants to really break open the Eavesdropping scandal. The barely existing scandal in the NFL, that is.

"Senator wants to know why NFL destroyed Patriots spy tapes"

WASHINGTON -- With the Super Bowl fast approaching, a senior Republican senator says he wants the NFL to explain why it destroyed evidence of the New England Patriots cheating scandal.

"I am very concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reasons for the judgment on the limited penalties and, most of all, on the inexplicable destruction of the tapes," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in a Thursday letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the matter could put the league's antitrust exemption at risk. In a phone interview with the Times on Thursday, he said the committee at some point will call on Goodell to address the antitrust exemption as well as the destruction of the tapes.

"Their antitrust exemption has been on my mind for a long time," he said in a Capitol Hill news conference Friday.