Our Culture of Destroying Evidence: Patentgate, the DDC, and our Courts; Now the NFL

POL EYES CHEAT COVER-UP
The New York Post By ANDY SOLTIS

February 2, 2008 -- A powerful Republican senator yesterday blasted the NFL for destroying the "Spygate" videotapes - and for ignoring his questions for more than two months about the New England Patriots' cheating.
After Sen. Arlen Specter's criticism, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell responded that he was "more than willing" to meet Specter and provide his "very good" explanation for zapping the tapes.

Goodell also said there was no indication the Patriots had cheated in winning previous Super Bowls - and denied that the scandal would taint their record if they beat the Giants tomorrow and finish with an unprecedented 19-0 season.

Spygate broke open in September, when the NFL confiscated a video camera during the Patriots' season-opening win over the Jets. The league fined the Patriots $250,000 and head coach Bill Belichick $500,000 for illegally stealing Jet signals. A week later, the NFL destroyed six tapes that the Patriots had surrendered.

Specter said Thursday that he wrote Goodell in November asking about the league's probe - and again in December after learning of the "inexplicable destruction of the tapes."

He said he didn't get a response until Thursday, when Goodell wrote back saying he did away with the tapes to ensure that the Patriots "would not secure any possible competitive advantage as a result of the misconduct" - apparently fearful the tapes could fall into the hands of other teams.

But Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that "absolutely makes no sense at all."

"I don't see any reason for the destruction of the tapes," he told reporters in Washington.

He made a veiled threat to repeal the NFL's antitrust exemption, which allows the league to sign billion-dollar TV contracts for all 32 teams.

Specter said destroying the Spygate tapes may not be as bad as the CIA destroying interrogation tapes, but "the integrity of football is very important."

"There's a credibility issue here," he said.

Goodell replied yesterday at a press conference, "The reason I destroyed the tapes is they were totally consistent with what the team told me."

"It's not exciting," he said of the tapes' content.

Asked by reporters if he had thought before de stroying the tapes that it would look like a cover-up, he said, "No, I didn't."

Goodell, son of a former US senator from New York, said that if he merely locked the tapes up, they might have been leaked - as one tape was shortly after the scandal erupted.

Destroying the tapes "was the best way to make sure the Patriots followed my instructions, to make sure that bit of information would not appear anywhere again," he said. "If it did, I'd know they didn't hand me all the information."

The commissioner said the videotape cheating "probably had limited, if any, effect on any game" because NFL coaches take precautions to avoid their signals being stolen.

The tapes were from the 2007 preseason and the 2006 season. Goodell didn't say how far back the Patriots' taping began.

But he said he could assure Specter, an avid Philadelphia Eagles fan, that the Eagles' loss to the Patriots in the 2005 Super Bowl was not due to signal theft.

Eagles head coach "Andy Reid is a very smart coach," he said.

andy.soltis@nypost.com