Law Firm Behind Deflategate’s Wells Report Throwing a Hillary Clinton Fundraiser

Hillary Clinton Photo by Sarah Fisher

Update: Thursday, 1:04 p.m.

GOP super PAC American Crossroads is calling on Clinton to cancel the fundraiser with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in order to prove she “won’t stand for wasting taxpayer dollars on ill-conceived witch hunts.”

“It says a lot that the perpetually tone deaf Hillary Clinton would raise tainted Deflategate money from the lawyers that collected millions in a frivolous witch hunt of New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady,” communications director Ian Prior said in an email. “Granite Staters would do well to remember this when she is hosting rallies in January shouting ‘Go Patriots’ in her fake New Hampshire accent.”

Previously:

The New York-based law firm that produced the so-called Wells Report, a 243-page document at the center of this summer’s Soviet show-trials comprising Deflategate, is holding a $2,700-per-person fundraiser for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is hosting the soirée Thursday in New York City, reports WMUR. Ted Wells, a partner at the firm and a co-chair in the NFL’s Litigation Department, authored the report summarizing the findings of a dubiously independent investigation funded the league and Commissioner Roger Goodell, alleging that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was “at least generally aware” of the marginal deflation of footballs prior to the AFC Championship Game. The Pats savaged the Indianapolis Colts, 45-7.

For this general awareness, Goodell suspended Brady four games, which the league later upheld. In federal court in Manhattan, Judge Richard Berman ruled in favor of Brady and nullified his suspension, claiming Goodell had “dispensed his own brand of industrial justice.” The league promptly appealed the decision. In the meantime, Brady and company are 9-0 this season, with their sights set on a fifth Super Bowl title.

As WMUR notes, Clinton has not made her football loyalties as public as, say, her love of the Chicago Cubs. But Clinton did back a resolution congratulating the New York Giants on their Super Bowl victory over the Patriots in 2008 as senator of New York. In a groaningly bad joke already repeated a few times on the campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz not only declared that Brady was framed, but claimed Clinton was responsible for Deflategate.

“Why do you think she deleted her emails?” he said.

If anything’s to be made of Brady’s apparent endorsement of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who stood by Brady throughout the whole Kafkaesque ordeal, the firm at the heart of Deflategate backing Clinton all falls neatly into place along party lines.