Vice President Mike Pence abruptly canceled a trip to New Hampshire earlier this month so he could avoid shaking hands with a former New York Giants player under investigation for allegedly dealing drugs in the state, a report said Monday.
Pence on July 2 suddenly scrapped a scheduled roundtable discussion on the opioid crisis at the Granite Recovery Center headquarters in Manchester, N.H. — but his staff and the White House have stayed mum about why.
According to Politico, had Pence gone to the event, he would likely have met ex-NFLer Jeff Hatch, who was at the time being probed by the Drug Enforcement Administration for moving more than $100,000 of fentanyl from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.
A spokeswoman for Pence didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Hatch — who was the chief business development officer for Granite Recovery Centers until Monday — agreed to plead guilty Friday in New Hampshire federal court to a single count of using a telephone to help commit a crime, court records show. He faces up to four years in prison.
According to court documents, Hatch, 39, in 2017 picked up about 1,500 grams of the deadly opioid from a supplier in Lawrence, Mass., and brought the stash back to his home in New Hampshire, later doling out smaller amounts to couriers.
The former offensive tackle for the Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers has spoken publicly about his addiction to drugs and alcohol.
After the trip’s sudden cancellation, conflicting reports surfaced about what happened but no specific reason was cited.
President Donald Trump himself added to the mystery.
“You’ll know in about two weeks,” Trump told reporters July 5. “There was a very interesting problem that they had in New Hampshire I can’t tell you about it.”
This report originally appeared on NYPost.com.
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