The son of Arlen Specter, a former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, told ESPN that former president Donald Trump offered "a lot of money in Palm Beach" to convince the late politician to drop an investigation into the New England Patriots' Spygate scandal in early 2008.
Specter died of cancer in 2012 but wrote the following in his memoir, "Life Among the Cannibals: A Political Career, a Tea Party Uprising, and the End of Governing As We Know It":
"On the signal stealing, a mutual friend had told me that 'if I laid off the Patriots, there'd be a lot of money in Palm Beach.' And I replied, 'I couldn't care less.'"
Specter never identified the "mutual friend" to Charles Robbins, the senator's former communications aide and co-writer of both of his memoirs. But Robbins believes Specter was referring to Trump.
"I was pretty darn sure the offer was made by Trump," Robbins told ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham. "At the time, it didn't seem like such an important moment. Back then, Trump was a real estate hustler and a TV personality."
Shanin Specter, the senator's son, was more firm.
"It was Trump," he told ESPN.
"My father told me that Trump was acting as a messenger for Kraft. But I'm equally sure the reference to money in Palm Beach was campaign contributions, not cash. The offer was Kraft assistance with campaign contributions. ... My father said it was (Robert) Kraft's offer, not someone else's."
Spokesmen for Trump and Kraft both denied involvement.
A Patriots spokesman told ESPN that Kraft "never asked Donald Trump to talk to Arlen Specter on his behalf."
"This is completely false," Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, told ESPN. "We have no idea what you're talking about."
Kraft never donated money to Specter, according to ESPN. Trump donated $11,300 to Specter's campaign committees over the course of three decades, per the report.
Specter dropped his investigation into Spygate in June 2008.
You can read ESPN's full story on Trump's alleged involvement in the Spygate investigation here.
