RUSH: I have another question, ladies and gentlemen. Tom Brady, quarterback, New England Patriots, replaced his legal cell phone, a Samsung. That almost made me change my mind, by the way, about this whole story. Brady admitted he had a Samsung. But I was able to get past that. Tom Brady admits that he replaced his legal cell phone, and he must be guilty. And over here, Hillary Clinton destroys her illegal e-mail server, and she must be innocent. We give Hillary the benefit of the doubt, and she’s a former secretary of state.

She’s a presidential candidate. She is accepting huge payments in her family crime foundation from foreign governments who are hoping she’s gonna be elected president because she’s thus been bribed. Ditto, her husband. She gets the benefit of the doubt. Tom Brady? Guilty! Automatically guilty. You ought to read the New York Post. Now, I understand “New York Post” = “New York Jets” = “Hate the New England Patriots.” I understand Spygate. I understand all of this.

But, man, some of the vitriol today aimed at Brady, it’s just fascinating. All of this is fascinating. Steve Serby in the Post. Let me just give you the headline. “One way Tom Brady can move on from the mess he created,” and that’s mild compared to the substance of… We’ll get into it here. I’m just setting the table for everything coming up on the program today. Robert Kraft showed up unexpectedly at a press conference. This is the first day of training camp for the Patriots.

Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots — and full disclosure, Robert Kraft is a very good acquaintance of mine, a close acquaintance of mine. He and his late wife Myra were very close to us, and I can’t begin to tell you the betrayal that he feels. He admitted in his press conference today that he bit the bullet. You know, the Patriots were fined a million dollars and a couple of draft picks in this whole Deflategate thing.

Robert Kraft admitted today that he was attempting to build a bridge of cooperation, magnanimity with the league by accepting and not fighting that fine and the penalty of the two draft picks, and he was enraged, for him. He was enraged. He apologized to the New England Patriots fan base for making such a huge mistake of having faith and trust in the league. I know it’s football, and I know to many people it’s a game. It’s Big Business at the same time, particularly to people in it.

What’s happened here has… You don’t know the friendships, the business relationships, the degree of protection various entities help each other with, support and all that, and it’s all been blown to bits with this. This goes beyond whatever ultimately happens here with Brady and his punishment.

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RUSH: Tom Brady replaces his legal cell phone and has to be guilty. He had a Samsung phone out there. He went out got an iPhone 6 by his own admission. When I saw that he had a Samsung, questions were raised, but I didn’t make a big deal of it. He says he gets rid of phones every four months or six months ’cause he’s too famous. Like me, he’s too famous. He has to get rid of the phones because too many people get his number.

Honestly, that seemed kind of flimsy to me, especially when I heard that he couldn’t furnish the text messages because they weren’t on the phone any. But they never are on the phone. Unless you’re actually talking about SMS text messages on your iPhone, the green bubbles, cellular text message, yeah. Those are not kept, or those are on the phone. They are not on a server anywhere. The cell carrier, AT&T, T-Mobile, they hold them for three or four days, maybe. I think Verizon holds them longer than anybody else.

I don’t know who he services with, but if he’s using an iPhone… Well, wait, he was using Samsung before. Samsung, it would be either texts or WhatsApp or, you know, I’m sure that Android has its own messaging app, a bunch of them. Those are all on servers. Getting rid of your phone doesn’t get rid of your messages. At least not all of them. But Brady says he routinely does this, he and his wife both, because he’s too famous and too vulnerable. Start fresh.

But regardless, here’s Brady legally replacing his legal phone, and he must have been guilty. Hillary Clinton destroys her questionable and perhaps illegal server, and she must be innocent. Brady doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt. Hillary does. Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, feels betrayed in a big way. Robert Kraft a couple of months ago, the Patriots were also fined over this Deflategate story. They were fined a million dollars and penalized with the loss of a couple of draft choices, draft picks.

Robert Kraft decided and publicly stated he was going to accept the penalties, pay the fine and lose the draft picks, rather than fight the NFL because of unity and respect for the league and comity and all of that. He admitted today that he also did it hoping that it would facilitate a reasonable settlement in the Brady case. And it didn’t. So today he goes the first day of training camp of the Patriots, he shows up, addresses the media, and apologizes to the fans for what he said was a stupid mistake of trusting the National Football League. So go to the audio sound bites.

This is Foxboro, this is at Gillette Stadium, and this is the first of three that we have…

KRAFT: In the vast majority of these cases, there’s tangible and hard evidence for which the discipline is being imposed, and still the initial penalty gets reduced. I continue to believe and unequivocally support Tom Brady. I, first and foremost, need to apologize to our fans, because I truly believe what I did in May — given the actual evidence of the situation and the league’s history on discipline matters — would make it much easier for the league to exonerate Tom Brady. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

RUSH: I’m telling you, he feels betrayed and devastated and disappointed, because he’s admitted it here that he gave up the fight of the penalties thinking that that act would be a show of good faith, and the people in the commissioner’s office would respond with either an exoneration or a serious reduction in the suspension and ultimate penalty of Brady. He really thought… I mean, that’s how mannered and cultivated people do things.

There are unspoken agreements that this kind of behavior is going to be reciprocated, and he feels like he got slapped in the face. And he apologized… I mean, to me, this is big: Apologizing to his fans for his stupidity. He’s not stupid. He’s apologizing… It’s not stupidity. His mistake in trusting the league. And, believe me, Robert Kraft… Look, it’s the Patriots, and people hate ’em, and they’re Spygate, and there are people who think…

I mean, there’s all kinds of theories that the commissioner didn’t penalize ’em enough at Spygate. This is to make up for that, that there’s a lot of owners out there pressuring Goodell. “Hey, you don’t let ’em off this time! They got off too scot-free after Spygate, that was real cheating, they still haven’t paid the price.” All these allegations go, and nobody knows what really happened. This kind of stuff’s flying around out there. And if there is another lawsuit, which it appears there will be, all of this stuff surface.

And it will eventually be known whether it happened or not. But in the midst of all this, the league’s been under assault, the league’s been under attack, and Kraft is one of these owners that believes that he’s always put the league first to defend it, to protect it, represent it, and he just doesn’t… I mean, he’s beside himself at this. He thinks it’s such an insignificant thing, air pressure in a football, and the quarterback supposedly not cooperating. Now, one thing.

I tell you, the league is very crafty when it comes to PR, ’cause right now everybody thinks that Tom Brady destroyed his phone to avoid producing evidence? You think that? We all thought that when the news was released yesterday, even on this program. “Oh, folks, this is big news. The NFL upheld Brady’s suspension and they’ve just accused him of destroying his phone.” So you let some time go by and you find out that what happened — and the NFL admits it.

It’s on page 11 or 12 of their release yesterday that Brady didn’t destroy the phone. He says he gets new phones every four to six months, that his lawyers assured him that he didn’t need to keep his current phone, that they were done with it, at the league. This is what he’s saying his lawyers advised him. He gets rid of the phone that supposedly had all this just evidence on it, and then the league even admits that Brady offered to give the league the names and phone numbers of everybody who he had texted with in the past six months or eight months.

So that the league could then contact them and see if they had any of the text messages they had received from Brady and that they had sent him. It sounds like cooperation, and the league rejected it on the basis that that, “No, that’s not how this is done. We’re not gonna hunt around out there. There’s no guarantee those people still have the messages and so forth. You didn’t produce ’em when we asked, and that’s the end of it.” So the Brady camp is saying, “Wait a minute. We didn’t destroy evidence.”

That’s why everybody’s concerned that the Patriots. They don’t understand why would… By the way, just from the standpoint of business, you have to ask yourself a question here. I know a lot of people hate the Patriots, and I know a lot of people hate Brady because successful winners are hated by losers. It’s just human nature. Okay? But the league is not supposed to be caught up in all that. I mean, here is arguably a pretty good looking face for the NFL.

Given all the people play this game, he’s got one of the best faces of players out there. He has a great reputation as a winner. He’s not out there doing all this other stuff that players are getting fined. Why in the world…? People are asking, “Why in the world would you want to go after a reputation like that that is so successfully tied to the reputation of the NFL? And Kraft alluded to that in his remark. (paraphrased) “Well, I don’t understand this. Why in the world would the league want to target itself this way?” He thinks the league’s targeting itself by targeting Brady.

Here’s the next Kraft sound bite, by the way…

KRAFT: Yesterday’s decision by Commissioner Goodell was released under an erroneous headline that read: “Tom Brady Destroyed His Cell Phone.” It intentionally implied nefarious behavior and minimized the acknowledgement that Tom provided the history of every number he texted during that relevant time frame. And we had already provided the league with every cell phone of every non-NFLPA employee that they requested, including Head Coach Bill Belichick.

RUSH: Yeah, here’s the last one, just another portion of Kraft’s remarks today to the media at Gillette Stadium.

KRAFT: Back in May, I had to make a difficult decision that I now regret. I want to apologize to the fans of the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. I was wrong to put my faith in the league. Given the facts, evidence, and laws of science that underscore this entire situation, it is completely incomprehensible to me that the league continues to take steps to disparage one of its all-time great players and a man for whom I have the utmost respect.

RUSH: Okay, anybody out there want to tackle that one for me? I mean, that’s a pretty good question. “Given the facts, evidence…? Okay, whole sentence. “Given the facts, evidence, and laws of science…?” They claim they’ve got support, the Patriots do, the Brady camp (from the American Enterprise Institute, by the way) that that whole air pressure thing was a bunch of made-up science, phony baloney. The Wells report was weak and so forth. They think they’ve got the evidence on their side.

But the question is incomprehensible to Kraft that the league is trying to destroy the reputation of its best player. It doesn’t make sense. And then when you say that, the next question is: “But what if he did it?” Brady. Does anybody want to tackle that for me? I know I answered it ages ago but I want to see how many people remember. Somebody want to answer for me? Why would the league want to destroy the reputation of one of its greatest all time players?

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RUSH: When it was over, Robert Kraft said, “Okay, now I’m through, and the real reason you’re here is up next, Bill Belichick.” So everybody thought, “Wow, Belichick’s gonna weigh in on Deflategate? Holy smokes.” So Belichick gets up there, and the first question is, “Coach, is there something flawed about the system here, the organization? You keep ending up in these cheating controversies. Can you explain why?”

BELICHICK: It’s already been addressed.

REPORTER: Can you elaborate a little?

BELICHICK: No.

REPORTER: Why not?

BELICHICK: ‘Cause it’s already been addressed.

REPORTER: People have a lot of questions, you know. The public, the fans.

BELICHICK: You heard what Robert just said. It’s already been addressed.

RUSH: We’re on to training camp. We’re on to Cincinnati. We’re on to training. We’re on to Buffalo. We’re on to training camp. So Kraft finishes, introduces Belichick, makes it look like they’re all there to hear Belichick, not Kraft. Nobody’s expecting Kraft. He was a surprise show. I think about this first question. See, you know what this question, that this reporter asked. You know there are a lot of people, particularly in the New York sports media, who still seethe over Spygate.

And they think the Patriots are a bunch of cheaters and that they probably still are and that they never got properly punished. There are a lot of people are okay with all this, ’cause it’s what should have happened back during Spygate. This first question: “Coach, is there something flawed about the system here, the organization? You keep ending up in knees cheating controversies? Can you explain it?” “It’s already been addressed.” “Could you elaborate a little?” “No.” “Why not?” “‘Cause it’s already been addressed.”

We’re on to training camp. You heard Robert. Get me outta here! I hate dealing with idiots, particularly people in the media. We’re on to training camp.

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RUSH: There’s still sound on the Brady story today from the Drive-Bys. Boy, it’s brutal. It’s brutal to Brady. You know, it’s… I don’t know. No matter how much I think I know, no matter how much I know I learn, I will always have to admit to being surprised by people, the way they think and what they say, how they do it.

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RUSH: Grab sound bite six. I want you to listen to Bill Rhoden, New York Times, talking about Tom Brady on CBS This Morning. Charlie Rose said, “So the idea of destroying the cell phone, simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. They had to stick with the original ruling; is that right, Bill?”

RHODEN: No matter how much you love him, this is a game-changer. This completely changes his legacy, which I thought before I heard about this yesterday, “You know, well, nothing can really change this guy’s legacy, because blah, blah, blah, blah.” But once you destroy evidence in any investigation, I don’t care where you are, you cannot do this. This is about almost borderline criminality. And, frankly, the thing that surprises me is that this guy’s still playing. I mean, he’s disrespecting the attorneys. Some great attorneys. He’s disrespecting the league; he’s disrespecting the game.

RUSH: Folks, now, you see why Robert Kraft is a little bothered here? The NFL puts out this story toward the end of the day yesterday that Brady destroyed his cell phone and destroyed the evidence. And we learned later in the day once the NFL full report comes out that that didn’t happen. That Brady offered to help reconstruct the evidence. It’s just not that cut-and-dried. And then to say (imitating), “I’m surprised the guy’s still playing after he’s disrespected these great lawyers and he’s disrespected these great attorneys and disrespected the league, he’s still playing?”

Bill Rhoden’s at the New York Times. He had plenty of time to figure out that the NFL pulled a PR move yesterday with this releasing of the news that Brady destroyed evidence. Ah, some people still think he did. Now, here’s Willie McGinnis, who played. This is number 55, a great linebacker for the Patriots who played with Brady. On the NFL Network yesterday afternoon he was asked, “What did you think when you heard that he had destroyed the cell phone?”

MCGINNIS: I mean, you don’t destroy something if you don’t want somebody to see it. He didn’t want somebody to see what was on it. Now, the other thing is if you sent out an e-mail, or you sent out a text, it has to go to somebody. So, somebody was on the other end of those messages. They retrieved those cell phones, so they have evidence, the commissioner said that there’s damning evidence. They felt comfortable.

RUSH: Boy, this is amazing. Again, what really fascinates me — it really does — is there’s no doubt what this is. They have made a conscious effort to damage Brady’s reputation, and he’s one of the best guys in the league. On the surface, it’s puzzling.