December 23, 2010

FBI Releases 400-Page File On Steinbrenner

In 1974, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner pled guilty to conspiring with eight of his American Shipbuilding Company employees to make illegal contributions (approximately $75,000) to Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign and to obstruction of justice (trying to "influence and intimidate" his employees into lying to a grand jury).

Steinbrenner was fined $15,000, suspended from baseball for 15 months by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and later received a presidential pardon from Ronald Reagan.

The FBI has released 400 pages relating to its investigation of Steinbrenner. You can download PDF files all of the documents here. A description from the FBI:
This release contains three files: 1) the FBI's investigation (Headquarters File 56-4737) into illegal campaign contributions made by Steinbrenner and his company, the American Shipbuilding Company, to the Nixon presidential campaign; 2) a laboratory analysis for the Federal Highway Administration of several anonymous letters concerning possible fraud in the federal aid highway program in Ohio (Headquarters File 95-189353); and 3) material related to Steinbrenner's appeal for a pardon from his conviction for illegal campaign financing and obstruction of justice (Baltimore Division File 73-841).

3 comments:

laura k said...

Good to know the FBI is tracking the dark side, too.

allan said...

From one memo, recapping the interviews of the eight employees:

The employees "admitted that they made contributions as indicated, admitted that they received company bonuses at about the time they made the contributions, in the approximate amount of the contributions, but claimed they would have made the political contribution even if they had not received the bonuses."

johngoldfine said...

"The two of them deserve each other. One's a born liar; the other's convicted." — Billy Martin, on Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner