In response to the news that former Pats employee Matt Walsh has no tape of the Rams’ walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI and that Walsh wasn’t the source for the February 2 Boston Herald story that the walk-through was taped, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) isn’t ready to concede that Walsh isn’t in a position to help Specter advance his agenda (whatever it might be) against the Patriots.

“I think it is very unfortunate that the NFL has already started its ‘nothing new’ spin before watching the tapes or finding out what Mr. Matt Walsh has to say.  Let’s see where the evidence leads.”

But the information comes from Walsh’s lawyer, Michael Levy, who presumably has watched the tapes.  And, by all appearances, Levy and not the NFL leaked the story to the Times.

With that said, there continues to be some confusion about whether the Patriots disclosed to the league in September 2007 that the improper videotaping of opponents’ signals dated back to 2000.  John Clayton of ESPN.com points out in a May 8 item that Commissioner Roger Goodell “didn’t reveal it until shortly before the Pro Bowl in February.”  But ESPN’s Chris Mortensen supposedly reported in September that Pats coach Bill Belichick had admitted to conducting illegal videotaping all the way back to 2000.

Regardless of these nuances, there’s simply no way of knowing for sure whether the Pats did or didn’t make such an admission, because the NFL destroyed all tapes and notes that the Pats surrendered at the time.