Tom Brady meets star-struck Joe Mixon after game, plans to send him a jersey

CINCINNATI — New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has a special delivery planned for Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon: his No. 12 jersey.

Brady and Mixon met on the field after the Patriots’ 34-13 victory against the Bengals on Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium, and later Mixon tweeted about how he regretted not asking Brady for the jersey.

Great game Joe, I’ll send a jersey your way! https://t.co/U2Et9XYgzK

Brady, 42, explained that he saw the tweet from the 23-year-old Mixon on Sunday night and was flattered.

“I’m going to send him one, because I saw that last night. It was pretty cool,” Brady said Monday morning in his weekly interview on sports radio WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.”

“I feel the same way about so many of these young players that inspire me. That guy is one of the great running backs in the league. There was a time when I was a young player and I looked up to so many guys. I think now that I’m on the other end of it, I understand kind of how it goes. You see these guys playing on TV, then you meet them, it’s surreal.

“I feel like that still with guys; I’ve been around Joe Montana and Steve Young and Jerry Rice and Brett Favre. Some of the greats. I feel the same way about them. It’s just part of our nature. I think the NFL is a great camaraderie. As hard as we play, and as violent as the game is, I think there is a lot of respect that you really find in contact sports. Because you realize the level of commitment and dedication it takes.”

Mixon shared his experience of meeting Brady.

“He was like, ‘Great player, hell of a runner,'” he said after the game. “I was like, ‘Dang, that’s Tom Brady that said that.’ I appreciate that. I was like, ‘Good job, keep being you, keep being great.'”

Mixon finished with 136 yards on 25 carries (5.4 avg.) against the Patriots, as the Bengals successfully ran the ball on their first eight plays of the game.

The Bengals selected Mixon in the second round of the 2017 NFL draft out of Oklahoma. Patriots coach Bill Belichick said after the game that he is “as good as any back we’ve played all year.”

ESPN Bengals reporter Ben Baby contributed to this story.

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Democrats Kicked Off Impeachment Week By Accusing Trump of a Crime

Credit to Author: Alex Lubben| Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2019 18:57:25 +0000

Democrats just accused President Donald Trump of criminal bribery in a new report from the House Judiciary as they get ready to impeach the president.

Central to the accusation is, of course, that Trump used a meeting and foreign aid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The behemoth of a report — a door-stopper at 658 pages — was published on Monday morning and elaborates on the two articles of impeachment. The articles don’t make a criminal accusation; this report does.

“President Trump abused the powers of the Presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit,” the report reads. “He has also betrayed the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections.”

The report dropped as the Democratically-controlled House is expected to vote on the two articles of impeachment on Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know ahead of that historic moment:

Freshman Dems want Amash to help them make their impeachment case

Rep. Justin Amash, an independent as of last year, is both one of the House’s most conservative members and a Trump critic who left the Republican party last year. And some Dems think looping him in on impeachment would help bolster their case that this isn’t a partisan impeachment.

A group of some 30 Dems are pushing for Amash to lead a small group that would argue their impeachment case before the Senate, according to the Washington Post.

“To the extent that this can be bipartisan, it should, and I think including Representative Amash amongst the impeachment managers is a smart move both for the country, for the substance and for the optics,” Rep. Dean Phillips, who’s leading the push to draft Amash, told the Post.

A Democrat against impeachment is expected to switch parties

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the contrarian Democrat from New Jersey who’s been a vocal opponent of impeachment, reportedly met with Trump privately last week and is now going to become a Republican.

He’s one of two Democrats who voted against opening an impeachment inquiry in October, and has said he’ll likely vote against it this week. He represents a swing district in southern New Jersey that went for Trump in 2016.

His staffers aren’t pleased, and there’s been a mass exodus from his office since he’s floated the idea of switching parties, according to the New York Times.

The day he’s expected to be impeached, Trump’s holding a rally

The president’s planning to head to Michigan on Wednesday, a state that he narrowly won in 2016, on the same day the House is almost certain to impeach him.

Trump’s consistently slammed the impeachment process as a partisan hit job on his presidency. And he’s been tweeting his way through the whole thing.

“The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics!” Trump tweeted on Monday.

Schumer wants top Trump officials to serve as witnesses

The Democratic leader in the Senate wants to subpoena White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, along with a number of his top deputies and former national security adviser John Bolton, to make them testify.

Mulvaney had already been subpoenaed by House committees and defied the summons. Bolton hasn’t yet been subpoenaed, but has said that he would refuse to comply fight it in court. Trump tried to keep officials from complying with requests to testify — but several, including EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, have bucked the president and testified anyway.

“The trial must be one that not only hears all of the evidence and adjudicates the case fairly; it must also pass the fairness test with the American people,” Sen. Chuck Schumer said in a letter to Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican and Trump backer.

Trump’s camp, of course, slammed the notion that Democrats could lead a fair impeachment trial. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham called the notion “laughable” in a tweet on Monday.

Cover: President Donald Trump watches the first half of an NCAA college football game between Army and Navy, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2019, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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