On Thursday morning, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a 79-page report revealing its findings in the 14-month investigation of Washington Redskins/Football Team/Commanders owner Daniel Snyder, and the toxic workplace environment Snyder was accused of facilitating.
From Mark Maske, Liz Clarke, and Nicki Jhabvala of the Washington Post:
Snyder testified that the team informed the NFL in 2009 about allegations against him that led to a $1.6 million settlement with a former employee who accused him of sexual assault. That assertion stood in contrast to Goodell’s June testimony, during which he was asked whether the league was told of the allegation and replied, “I don’t recall him informing [the league] of that, no.” The report said the NFL subsequently “informed the Committee that the Team did not disclose the specific nature of this allegation to the NFL until more than 10 years later, in 2020” during an investigation conducted by attorney Beth Wilkinson. Wilkinson’s investigation prompted a July 2021 agreement negotiated by the league and Snyder, under which the team was fined $10 million and Snyder stepped away from the franchise’s daily operations.
There was much more in the report, entitled “Conduct Detrimental: How the NFL and the Washington Commanders Covered Up Decades of Sexual Misconduct.”
Snyder testified remotely in front of the committee for a total of 20 hours, and the committee was not at all satisfied with the answers it got.
Over the last year, Mr. Snyder engaged in a series of attempts to interfere with the Committee’s investigation. Mr. Snyder publicly assailed witnesses, refused to release former employees from their confidentiality obligations, and blocked the Committee’s access to tens of thousands of documents collected during the Wilkinson Investigation.
“Today’s report reflects the damning findings of the Committee’s year-long investigation and shows how one of the most powerful organizations in America, the NFL, mishandled pervasive sexual harassment and misconduct at the Washington Commanders,” Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the committee’s chairwoman, said in a statement. “Our report tells the story of a team rife with sexual harassment and misconduct, a billionaire owner intent on deflecting blame, and an influential organization that chose to cover this up rather than seek accountability and stand up for employees.”
The list of conclusions is quite damning to Snyder, his franchise, and the NFL in general.
BREAKING: After a year-long investigation, @OversightDems is releasing our final report on the @Commanders' toxic workplace culture and the startling lengths that they – with the support of the @NFL – went to cover it up and evade accountabilityhttps://t.co/iZWeYNMROe
— Oversight Committee (@OversightDems) December 8, 2022
Snyder and the NFL did everything possible to hide the Wilkinson report.
In February, it was revealed that the report about the team’s long history of sexual harassment, and other toxic workplace issues by attorney Beth Wilkinson was a written investigation from Wilkinson’s law firm. Previously, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had said that the league could not release the finings of Wilkinson’s investigation because the report was not written, and was given to the league orally.
“This morning, we released two key documents: the first shows Wilkinson was hired to write a report, but as we know, NFL changed that plan,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Illinois) said in a statement. “The second shows the Commanders and NFL agreed to pursue a ‘joint legal strategy,’ raising serious doubts about NFL’s commitment to independence and transparency in investigating the Commanders. We will continue to investigate, get answers, provide accountability for these victims and workers across America.”
From ESPN’s December 8 report:
“We saw efforts that we have never seen before, at least I haven’t,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, who chaired the committee. “The NFL knew about it and they took no responsibility.”
NFL officials “were acting like they were doing something,” Maloney told ESPN. “Then they turn around and fix it so she can’t talk. Her report is never going to be made public, yet she was supposed to be hired to address it. The hypocrisy. The coordinated effort to hide what they acknowledged.”
As ESPN’s Tisha Thompson and Liz Clarke of the Washington Post reported in February, the NFL and Snyder entered into an agreement that any findings from Congress’ probe could not be made public by one entity without the agreement of the other.
“The NFL chose to bury Ms. Wilkinson’s findings and whitewash the misconduct it uncovered,” the committee’s report concluded. “Rather than seek real accountability, the NFL aligned its legal interests with Mr. Snyder’s, failed to curtail his abusive tactics, and buried the investigation’s findings.”
In the report, investigators said the league “refused to turn over” at least 40,000 documents collected by Wilkinson during the investigation.
Snyder may have leaked the Jon Gruden e-mails.
In October, 2021, Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden resigned his position after racist, sexist, and homophobic e-mails from Gruden to former Washington team president Bruce Allen were released to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Allen and Gruen worked together in Oakland and Tampa.
The New York Times report, written by Ken Belson and Katherine Rosman, indicated that Gruden, over a period of several years, used anti-gay and other slurs to describe NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and said that Goodell should not have “pressured” then St. Louis Rams head coach Jeff Fisher to select Michael Sam in the seventh round of the 2014 NFL draft. Sam is gay, as is Carl Nassib, the linebacker who has played for the Raiders since 2020. Gruden also expressed multiple misogynistic thoughts.
The Wall Street Journal’s report indicated that also in 2011, Gruden sent an e-mail to Allen in which he said of NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith: “Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of michellin tires.”
Smith, the NFLPA’s Executive Director since 2009, is Black.
From the Post’s December 8 report:
Allen learned in October 2021 that many of the emails culled by Snyder’s lawyers from his team email account had been leaked to the Journal. The report said that when Allen called Lisa Friel, the league’s special counsel for investigations, to complain, “she indicated that the team was responsible for the leak, stating: ‘We didn’t do it at the league office. It came out of their side.’ ”
The NFL previously has denied leaking the emails but has not pointed so directly to the team being responsible. Gruden filed a lawsuit against the NFL last year, accusing the league and Goodell of using the leaked emails to “publicly sabotage Gruden’s career.” Tanya Snyder told fellow NFL owners at an October 2021 league meeting in New York that neither she nor her husband was responsible for the leaked emails, multiple people present at that meeting said then.
From the committee report, which indicates that the e-mails were released the day before Allen’s testimony:
When asked why he believed Mr. Snyder would provide the tranche of documents the night before his deposition, Mr. Allen explained that Mr. Snyder was ‘trying to send a message’ to him to ‘be careful,’ ” the report said. According to Mr. Allen, Mr. Snyder’s actions signaled that ‘he owns me with these emails, which affect my co-workers, the alumni, my family and friends.’
From Allen’s testimony:
On the NFL executive indicating that Snyder’s representatives leaked the offensive Jon Gruden emails found in Allen’s team account:
A. I called Lisa Friel … I was adamant … I said, “Well, who in the hell is giving my emails to The Wall Street Journal? Why don’t I — I’m the only person that doesn’t have my own emails. Why?”
And she went on to say, “We didn’t do it at the league office. It came out of their side.” And she said, “Well, you know, you don’t look good with this.”
And I said, “Can someone tell me what it is? I don’t even know what it is. There’s something that he says is racist and homophobic in an email to me, but I have no idea what you guys are talking about …”
Q. When she said it came out of their side, what did you understand her to mean by that?
A. She was saying her crew, all the crew that — whoever the crew is on their side who have all my emails, including my mom’s friends, didn’t do it. So she’s pointing a finger at the team — unless there’s another group who has my emails who I don’t know.
Q. So Lisa Friel was saying that the NFL hadn’t leaked it and it had come from the team, to your understanding?
A. Yes.
Snyder hired private investigators to gather 'dirt' on possible obstructions.
An October report by ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr., Seth Wickersham and Tisha Thompson revealed that Snyder had hired private investigators to ‘gather dirt’ on other NFL owners — perhaps to protect his standing.
Most sources declined to go on the record for this story; [NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell has warned owners that they could be fined millions of dollars for leaking to reporters. Snyder “thinks he has enough on all of them,” says a former longtime senior Commanders executive. “He thinks he’s got stuff on Roger.” Another former Commanders executive routinely called Snyder “the most powerful owner in the NFL” because of what he knows, a source says.
Several owners say that they see the threats about damaging dossiers as a desperate tactic intended to scare owners from voting to remove Snyder. “He’s backed into a corner,” says a veteran owner who says he’s aware Snyder has gathered dirt on some owners. “He’s behaving like a mad dog cornered.”
Snyder said in his testimony that the hiring of private investigators was solely to reveal the source of a derogatory article about him from a website in India in 2020.
Q. Did you continue to use private investigators in connection with the Indian defamation lawsuit and/or any investigation into the leaks to The Washington Post regarding the exposé, the July 16 and/or the Aug. 26 exposé?
A. We used investigators regarding the India lawsuits. And, obviously, if the investigators made a mistake and went somewhere wrong, I apologize to anyone for that behavior. But our intention was very, very clear. And as I told the Committee, our entire focus was on this [India] situation.
But Allen, in his testimony, said that there was far more to it than that.
Q. When were you followed by a private investigator, Mr. Allen?
A. Last year.
Q. Do you recall when, approximately?
A. Yes. It was in around — well, I don’t know when it started. I met him I think in — right around beginning of March. But I don’t know when it started and I don’t know if it stopped.
Q. And how did you know the person who was following you was a private investigator?
A. My wife was concerned. We live in a — we had just moved into a home. And the street’s a real narrow street. It’s hard two cars even to go by. And she saw a car out there the night before, and then in the morning it was there and it’s running, the engine’s running. And I had made some coffee. And I went out. And the gentleman stepped out of the car and he said, “Hi, Mr. Allen.” I said, “Well, that’s interesting. You need a cup of coffee? Are you here to serve me with a subpoena or something?” He said, “No, we’re just here to follow you,” and something like “document your actions.”
What happens now?
As the House will have a Republican majority in January, this will be the end of this particular investigation. Republicans have made that clear. In a December 7 memo, Republican members of the House Oversight Committee sent a memo to the Republican Oversight Committee Staff.
“The Democrats’ sham investigation into the Washington Commanders has been an egregious waste of taxpayer-funded resources,” the memo said in part.. “From the beginning, Committee Democrats weaponized their power and pushed a one-sided investigation into a private company with no connection to the federal government. This entire charade has been an attempt to distract the American people from President Biden’s self-inflicted crises.”
In early November, Mike Ozanian of Forbes first reported that Snyder and his bankers were looking to see what the team might bring in a sale.
From the article (subscription):
According to a person familiar with the process, Snyder already has at least four calls from groups interested in buying the team. Snyder and his bankers are exploring all options and a transaction could be for the entire NFL team or a minority stake.
Neither the Commanders nor Bank of America, which has handled such notable team sales as the purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers by Steve Ballmer in 2014, would comment.
A new stadium for the Commanders might be enough of a deodorant to keep Snyder in play as an owner if that’s what he wants, but that’s run into serious trouble of late.
The Commanders currently play their home games at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, which opened in 1997. The state of Maryland has said that it would commit $400 million to develop the land around FedEx Field, and the Commanders have kept their options open.
But after so many negative situations in which the Commanders, former Washington Football Team, and former Washington Redskins have created and forwarded hostile work environments are starting to complicate the process.
Defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio’s comments about the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol Building as a mere “dust-up” — comments for which Del Rio had to apologize and was fined — had local lawmakers insisting that such a stadium wasn’t going to happen until the kind of culture re-boot promised by the team and the league actually took place.
“I think at this point, I don’t think there ever will be a vote,” Virginia Senator Jeremy McPike said in June, of the 200 acres. “I think they’re gonna be counting heads on the numbers, the number of people voting yes or no, and my guess is the vote’s probably off the table.
“I think this is the nail in the coffin. I think you’re gonna see more legislators now that have already been cooling off to it just shake their heads and walk away. I think that’s where we’re at now.”
Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has filed a lawsuit regarding what Racine has called “Deception… to protect their profits and their image,”
There are also the accusations that Snyder withheld ticket revenue that he is supposed to share with other owners.
Snyder would appear to be cornered with every new allegation, but he’s worked his way through everything to date, and if the NFL continues to protect him as it has, there’s no sure indication that he would be forced to resign his ownership, or sell the team.
For that to happen, the NFL itself would appear to need a redefinition of its conscience.
