House Committee: Commanders Owner & NFL Obstructed Inquiry, Enabled Toxic Work Environment
© AP Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta / Washington Commanders
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The Washington Commanders are one of 32 National Football League teams, and has an estimated value of $5.6 billion. In early November it was reported owner Dan Snyder was looking at options for selling part or all of the team. Snyder has owned the Commanders since 1999, when he purchased the team for $800 million.
A report from the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform on the Washington Commanders has outlined that team owner Daniel Snyder “permitted and participated” in a toxic work environment, and that he and the NFL worked together to obstruct the 14-month congressional inquiry.
The 79-page report released Thursday says the NFL was complicit with Snyder’s cover-up efforts by helping him bury a 2020-21 internal investigation of the team’s workplace performed by attorney Beth Wilkinson. The results of that investigation have not been made public.
The report details accusations of witness intimidation and tampering, private investigators following and harassing employees, unauthorized secret nude recordings of cheerleaders, and an alleged sexual assault by Snyder on his private plane in 2009.
The committee also accused Snyder of evasive and “misleading” answers to the committee’s questions and said he attempted to dodge the subpoena issued by the committee.
In a statement released by the team, the commanders said the report is politically driven, and that Snyder and the team fully cooperated with the investigation.
“These Congressional investigators demonstrated, almost immediately, that they were not interested in the truth, and were only interested in chasing headlines by pursuing one side of the story," the statement said. "Today's report is the predictable culmination of that one-sided approach. There are no new revelations here.”
Republicans on the committee also released a memo, blasting the investigation.
“The Democrats' sham investigation into the Washington Commanders has been an egregious waste of taxpayer-funded resources,” the statement read, adding that the committee should be focused on the government.
“No foundation exists for conducting congressional oversight of the Team. Simply put, Congress cannot provide any additional relief or remedies to any of the aggrieved parties. Why, then, has the Committee investigated a professional football team and targeted an individual team owner? Committee Democrats have chosen to weaponize the power of Congress against a single private workplace.”
The memo also echoes Snyder’s comments that the team’s toxic work environment was the result of former team president and general manager Bruce Allen; however, it also notes the environment improved since he left the team. Allen has countered the memo by pointing out that he did not work for the team for many of the years covered by the investigation.
Bruce Allen and the Private Investigators
Allen swore under oath to the committee that investigators were following him, and that they told him they were sent by the Washington Football Team (from 2020 to 2022 the Commanders were known as the Washington Football Team). Allen says the investigator who approached him also gave him a business card indicating he was a former FBI agent and pointed out several other individuals who were watching him.
Allen also says that prior to that incident, Snyder told him he was considering hiring a private investigator to follow NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Allen informed the committee he believed Snyder was joking at the time but after his incident with the private investigators and reading about similar experiences from other employees, he is no longer sure it was a joke.
In October, it was reported Snyder bragged to associates about having “dirt” on other team owners and Goodell, which would prevent any attempts by the league to force him to sell the team.
The NFL Helps Snyder
Allen also said he informed NFL Senior Vice President and special counsel in the Wilkinson investigation, Lisa Friel, about his experience with the private investigators. He said Friel gave him the impression she was not surprised, and called it “conduct detrimental” to the league’s integrity.
New York Representative and committee chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat, said the conversation showcases the NFL knew what Snyder was doing and enabled it to continue.
“They knew,” Maloney said. “They called it detrimental conduct that they then become complicit in by hiding the detrimental conduct. So it could continue, literally could continue. And that was, to me, irresponsible beyond belief.”
The report says Snyder admitted to using private investigators but claimed he could not recall conversations with his legal team about who the investigators approached or targeted.
According to Allen, Friel also informed him the Commanders planned to blame the toxic culture on him and heavily implied the Commanders were behind the email leak that revealed sexist and misogynistic comments from former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden.
In 2020, Snyder was hit with allegations that he ordered employees to take “the good bits” of outtakes from a swimsuit calendar photoshoot with the team’s cheerleaders and put them on a DVD for him. Snyder denied the allegations at the time but nude photos of the cheerleaders surfaced in the Gruden email leaks. The team would eventually settle out of court with the cheerleaders for an undisclosed sum. One of those cheerleaders is one of the employees that Snyder is accused of paying a private investigator to follow.
14 October 2021, 08:02 GMT
Snyder swore under oath that he never saw the “purported videos” but that he could not remember what the team did about them.
Maloney also said the use of private investigators was “extreme” and something she had not seen in her more than 30 years serving on Capitol Hill.
The committee notes the NFL refused to turn over more than 40,000 documents collected by the Wilkinson investigation, including her findings and final report.
It also states that while the NFL and Snyder claim that all former employees of the Commanders have been released from their confidentiality agreements, the committee found “a significant number of potential witnesses” who declined to share their experience either out of fear of retaliation or because the team had not yet released them from their “confidentiality obligations.”
"[Snyder] was intimidating the workforce and the executives,” Maloney said. “Anyone who spoke out, he had private investigators go to their home and track them. Going to a cheerleader's home with their children and try to offer hush money and try to intimidate them not to talk anymore.”
Also detailed in the report is the record-breaking $10 million fine the NFL imposed on the Commanders after the Wilkinson investigation. That fine was split into two $5 million parts; one half went to the NFL and the other went to local charities. The committee notes the arrangement potentially allowed the Commanders to use tax deductions to limit the impact of the fine and may have conferred “a benefit” to the team.
Beyond the Wilkinson report, the committee also notes three other incidents where the NFL and the Commanders refused to release evidence related to the investigation. The committee was unable to obtain the outtakes from the cheerleader calendar shoots, the PowerPoints made by the team to present to the NFL and Wilkinson, and information about a confidential settlement between Snyder and a woman he allegedly sexually assaulted on his plane in 2009.
That assault is now the subject of a second internal investigation by the NFL and is headed up by former Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Jo White.
In October, ESPN reported the woman rejected a seven-figure offer from the Commanders’ legal team to not speak about the allegations or the settlement. The Commanders deny any additional money was offered after the initial settlement.
According to the committee, a secret “common-interest agreement” between the NFL and the Commanders further implicates the league. The Committee contends (and ESPN reported in February) that the agreement essentially gave Snyder the power to veto any public releases from the Wilkinson investigation.
What's Next
The NFL is conducting its second investigation into Snyder, this time focusing on the 2009 sexual assault allegations. The Commanders are also dealing with a lawsuit and a criminal investigation by the US attorney office in Eastern District of Virginia dealing with alleged financial improprieties related to season-ticket deposits.
11 November 2022, 02:03 GMT
The Committee recommended that Congress should require the NFL and other professional sports leagues to “demonstrate compliance” with employment laws to keep their federal antitrust exemptions and tax-exempt bonds used to finance stadium construction and renovations.
At least two bills have been drafted in Congress in response to the investigation, including a bill titled “No Tax Subsidies for Stadiums Act.” Maloney also introduced a bill banning employers from recording and distributing images of employees without prior notice and consent. The law would also ban the use of nondisclosure agreements being used to prevent employees from speaking out about harassment, discrimination, or retaliation in the workplace.
However, the bills have little hope of passing in the political climate. Republicans are set to take over the House of Representatives in January and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) has already indicated the Committee will not continue its investigation once he becomes its chair.
Meanwhile, Maloney lost her seat to fellow Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) in a primary that took place because of redistricting. She will be out of Congress in January.
