august 19–september 1, 2019 | new york 13inside: The most in-demand Democratic donors / A nonagenarian tennis acelooking back,Sam Patten knew he was fucked the moment
the men in suits came looking for him. He returned from vaca-
tion to a report from his son, who said strange men who
looked like the Feds had knocked on the door but wouldn’t
reveal their identification or why they were after his father.
“I started to get a real bad sense then,” Patten told me. He’d
seen enough movies.
The second visit came late one morning just after Easter 2018.
His Siberian husky, Pepper, began to go “berserk.” Patten, a
48-year-old Republican political operative who was about to be
dragged right into the center of the Robert Mueller investigation,
could hear a commotion from the basement of his Capitol Hill
townhouse, where he was working in the cluttered office he calls
“my little dungeon.” Pepper is sweet and easily subdued by anyPHOTOGRAPH: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
Power:
Olivia Nuzzi
Mueller Was
Listening toThisGuy?
Sam Patten’s wild
lifeasacooperating
witness. This story is being published in partnership with Epic Magazine.
Sam and Laura Patten