Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder conducted a “shadow investigation” that sought to discredit former employees making accusations of workplace sexual harassment, hired private investigators to intimidate witnesses, and used an overseas lawsuit as a pretext to obtain phone records and emails, according to a document released by a House committee Wednesday.
The Committee on Oversight and Reform is investigating the Commanders' workplace culture following accusations of pervasive sexual harassment by team executives of women employees. It released the memo ahead of a hearing Wednesday in Washington that featured testimony from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, appearing remotely from New York.
Snyder was invited to testify but declined, citing overseas business commitments and concerns about due process. The committee chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., announced during the hearing that she plans to issue a subpoena to compel a deposition from Snyder next week.
The 29-page memo alleges Snyder tried to discredit the people accusing him and other team executives of misconduct and also tried to influence an investigation of the team conducted for the NFL by attorney Beth Wilkinson's firm.
Snyder's attorneys presented the NFL with a 100-slide PowerPoint presentation including “private text messages, emails, phone logs and call transcripts, and social media posts from nearly 50 individuals who Mr. Snyder apparently believed were involved in a conspiracy to disparage him,” the committee said.
In a statement, a spokesman for Snyder characterized the report and the hearing as “a politically charged show trial” and said Congress should not be investigating “an issue a football team addressed years ago.”
Goodell told the committee that the team’s culture has transformed as a result of the Wilkinson probe and that “Dan Snyder has been held accountable.” Asked by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., whether he would remove Snyder as owner, Goodell said, “I don't have the authority to remove him.”
An NFL owner can only be removed by a three-quarters majority vote of fellow owners.
The NFL fined the team $10 million last year and Snyder stepped away from its day-to-day operations after Wilkinson presented her findings to Goodell. However, the league did not release a written report of Wilkinson's findings, a decision Goodell said was intended to protect the privacy of former employees who spoke to investigators.
Attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent more than 40 former team employees, again called on Goodell to release a report from the Wilkinson probe, calling it “stunning and disheartening” to hear him say Snyder has been held accountable.
“Today, the committee released a damning report demonstrating that Snyder and his lawyers also surveilled and investigated complainants, their lawyers, witnesses and journalists, which Goodell knew about and did nothing to address,” Banks and Katz said in a statement.
When announcing the discipline against Snyder, the NFL said none of the people accused of sexual harassment still worked for the Washington franchise. But two separate accusations of sexual harassment by Snyder himself have since surfaced.
Former employee Tiffani Johnston told the committee that Snyder groped her at a team dinner and tried to force her into his limousine, which Snyder denies. And The Washington Post reported Tuesday that a woman accused Snyder of sexually assaulting her on a team plane in 2009, resulting in a $1.6 million settlement.
Goodell acknowledged Wednesday that he was aware of the 2009 allegation and that Snyder did not inform the league at the time, which is a violation of the NFL's personal conduct policy.
Johnston's allegation prompted the NFL to hire former Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Jo White to conduct a new investigation of Snyder and the team, and the league plans to release her findings to the public.
Maloney has introduced legislation to curb the use of workplace nondisclosure agreements and to offer protections for employees whose professional images are used inappropriately. Among the accusations against the Commanders are that team employees produced a video of lewd outtakes from a photo shoot involving the cheerleading squad.
According to the memo, Snyder used a defamation lawsuit against an obscure online media company based in India as a pretext to subpoena emails, phone records and text messages from former employees who spoke to The Washington Post about workplace harassment. The subpoenas were unusually broad, and many of the people targeted “had no plausible connection” to the Indian media company, the committee said.
The committee also alleged that Snyder sought to blame former team president Bruce Allen for the problems with Washington's workplace culture and that Snyder's lawyers provided Wilkinson and the NFL with 400,000 emails from Allen's account, highlighting specific ones they deemed “inappropriate.” Some email exchanges with Allen included homophobic and misogynistic comments by Jon Gruden, which were leaked to reporters last fall and prompted Gruden's resignation as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Witnesses also told the committee that Snyder sent private investigators to their homes and offered them hush money. The NFL was aware of Snyder's use of private investigators, according to documents obtained by the committee, but the practice continued, witnesses said.
Another new allegation came from David Pauken, the team's former chief operating officer, who told the committee in a deposition released Wednesday that Snyder directly ordered the firings of a female front-office employee for having a sexual relationship with a coach and two cheerleaders for having sex with a player. He also said the men involved were not disciplined.
Republicans on the committee accused Democrats of going after an NFL team to distract from more pressing issues and exceeding the scope of the committee's mission.
“A core responsibility of this committee is to conduct oversight of the executive branch, but this entire Congress, Democrats have turned a blind eye to the Biden administration,” said Kentucky GOP Rep. James Comer, the committee's ranking member. “Instead, the Oversight committee is investigating a single private organization for workplace misconduct that occurred years ago.”
Asked by Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., what authority the committee had to investigate an NFL team, Maloney responded, “We have authority to investigate anything and everything.”
“Anything and everything,” Norman said. “That's a total embarrassment.”
Maloney tried to clarify that comment in her closing remarks, saying the committee was authorized “to investigate anything within Congress' legislative power.”
Commanders coach Ron Rivera issued a statement late Wednesday night, distancing himself from the team's past.
“These investigations into inappropriate workplace issues pre-dates my employment," said Rivera, who was hired in 2020. "I cannot change the past, but I would hope that our fans, the NFL and Congress can see that we are doing everything in our power to never repeat those workplace issues. And know that our employees are respected, valued and can be heard.”
More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
Post a comment as
Report
Watch this discussion.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
State-Journal.com’s comments forum is for civil, constructive dialogue about news topics in our community, state, nation and world. We emphasize “civil” at a time when Americans, in the words of the current president, need to “turn down the temperature” of political debates. The State Journal will do its part by more carefully policing this forum. Here are some rules that all commenters must agree to follow:
Absolutely no attacks on other commenters, on guest columnists or on authors of letters to the editor. Our print and online opinion pages are sacred marketplaces of ideas where diverse viewpoints are welcome without fear of retribution. You may constructively critique the ideas and opinions of others, but name-calling, stereotyping and similar attacks are strictly prohibited.
Leeway will be given for criticism of elected officials and other public figures, but civility is essential. If you focus your criticism on ideas, opinions and viewpoints, you will be less likely to run afoul of our commenting rules.
Keep comments focused on the article or commentary in question. Don’t use an article about the Frankfort City Commission, for example, to rant about national politics.
Hyperpartisanship that suggests anyone on the other side of an issue or anyone in a particular particular party is evil is not welcome. If you believe that all Democrats are socialists intent on destroying America or that all Republicans are racists, there are lots of places on the internet for you to espouse those views. State-Journal.com is not one.
No sophomoric banter. This isn’t a third-grade classroom but rather a place for serious consumers of news to offer their reactions and opinions on news stories and published commentary.
No consumer complaints about individual businesses. If you’ve had a bad experience with a private business or organization, contact the Better Business Bureau or the government agency that regulates that business. If you believe the actions of a private business are newsworthy, contact us at news@state-journal.com and we will consider whether news coverage is merited.
Absolutely no jokes or comments about a person’s physical appearance.
No promotion of commercial goods or services. Our outstanding staff of marketing consultants stands ready to help businesses with effective advertising solutions.
If you state facts that have not been previously reported by The State Journal, be sure to include the source of your information.
No attacks on State Journal staff members or contributing writers. We welcome questions about, and criticism of, our news stories and commentary but not of the writers who work tirelessly to keep their community informed. Corrections of inaccurate information in news stories should be sent to news@state-journal.com rather than posted in the comments section.