Furthermore, Snyder hired private investigators and attorneys to uncover inappropriate emails and evidence aimed at convincing the NFL and Pete Wilkinson, who was conducting an NFL-sponsored investigation into sexual harassment in the organization, that Snyder’s team boss, Bruce Allen, was responsible. Basically about anything. Workplace issues.
Preliminary findings are detailed in a 29-page memo from Rep. Carolyn B. Expected to testify under oath. Snyder declined to participate, objecting to the date and terms.
“This memo describes evidence uncovered by the commission that demonstrates that although the NFL and leaders promoted the hiring of a respected attorney in D.C. [Wilkinson] To conduct an internal investigation into the leaders’ toxic workplace, in particular, Leaders Owner Daniel Snyder launched a shadow investigation in an apparent attempt to discredit his accusers in the eyes of the NFL and offer an alternative target for investigation,” Maloney wrote in her memo linked to a mutual interest agreement. And a joint legal strategy, the NFL and leaders finally buried Ms. Wilkinson’s results.”
Team representatives and Snyder’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning. In response to a request to comment on the committee’s findings, an NFL spokesperson referred to Goodell’s remarks prepared for Wednesday’s hearing.
I read Goodell’s comments in part: “It took great courage for so many to relive their traumatic experiences and tell their individual stories.” “No one should live in workplaces like the ones they described, especially not in the NFL. I can tell each victim unequivocally that their willingness to step up has greatly improved the workplace.
“It was clear to me that the Washington workplace was unprofessional and unacceptable in many ways: bullying, widespread disrespect for colleagues, use of degrading language, public embarrassment, and harassment. Moreover, for a long period of time, leaders had a resource job. woefully deficient, particularly with regard to reporting and record-keeping practices.”
The hearing comes a day after the Washington Post reported that a team employee accused Snyder of sexual harassment and assault in April 2009, three months before the team agreed to pay the woman $1.6 million as part of a confidential settlement, according to legal correspondence obtained. by The Post. Snyder called the woman’s claims “unmerited” and said the team agreed to settle only with the insurance company’s guidance.
“Mr. Snyder’s attorneys used their shadow investigation to create a 100-slide dossier with emails, text messages, phone records and social media posts from journalists, victims and witnesses who made credible public accusations of harassment of leaders,” Maloney wrote in the 29-page memo.
The file compiled by Snyder’s representatives, according to the commission’s investigation, included mail reporters detailing allegations of sexual harassment at the team’s workplace and attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent more than 40 former employees of the team.
“Mr. Snyder’s legal team made several presentations to the NFL during Ms. Wilkinson’s investigation, including one that includes a 100-page PowerPoint slide detailing the private communications and social media activities of Washington Post journalists and former employees.”
This 100-slide dossier was produced from “information obtained through abusive litigation tactics and private investigators who targeted victims and witnesses to leaders’ toxic work environment,” the commission found. Maloney wrote that Snyder’s goal “appears to have been to craft an exoneration narrative to present to the NFL showing that he was not responsible for the leaders’ toxic work environment but was the victim of a coordinated smear campaign.”
The NFL fined the team $10 million last July, based on the findings of the Wilkinson investigation. The association also then announced that Snyder would hand over control of the day-to-day operations of the franchise to his wife, Tanya, the team’s co-CEO, for an indefinite period. She has represented the team at league meetings ever since.
The commission’s investigation found that Snyder and his attorney sent private investigators to the homes of the team’s former cheerleaders in search of derogatory information about Allen and combed through more than 400,000 emails on Allen’s inactive team account in an attempt to convince the NFL that Allen was “responsible for the work culture.” toxic to the team.
Snyder fired Allen after a decade as team boss in December 2019. Allen was not immediately available for comment.
The panel found that lawyers representing Snyder had provided Allen’s emails to Wilkinson and the NFL. Maloney’s memo stated that Snyder’s attorney “identified specific inappropriate emails to Bruce Allen in an effort to demonstrate that Bruce Allen created a toxic environment in Washington’s leaders.”
Several of these emails subsequently appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, including some in which John Gruden, then-Las Vegas Raiders coach John Gruden, used racist, homophobic, and misogynistic language over the course of seven years of correspondence with Allen while Gruden was Works for ESPN. Gruden resigned from the raiders after the emails were revealed.
Tania Snyder told fellow NFL franchisees at a league meeting in New York in October that she and her husband were not responsible for the leaked emails, several people present at that meeting said at the time.
Gruden sued the NFL in November, accusing the league and Goodell of using leaked emails to “publicly sabotage Gruden’s career” and pressure him to resign. The NFL said it did not leak Gruden’s emails.
The association is now conducting a second investigation into Snyder, overseen by attorney Mary Jo White. Goodell vowed to publish those results, after refusing to disclose Wilkinson’s findings and saying that Wilkinson only gave an oral report to the league.
Maloney’s summary of the congressional investigation noted that the NFL’s initial contract with Wilkinson called for her to submit a written report and make recommendations, but that the league subsequently “changed its plan.” Maloney’s memo accuses the team and the NFL of obstructing investigations by both Wilkinson and the congressional committee.
The memo also cites cases in which Snyder took no action against coaches and senior staff and yet sanctioned female employees for engaging in consensual relationships with male employees. David Buchen, the team’s former chief operating officer, told the committee that when Snyder learned that a coach had touched a PR employee, Snyder refused to take action against the coach and instead ordered the PR employee to “walk away from the coach.”
Baukin also testified that Snyder fired female employees who had entered into consensual relationships with members of the team or its employees. He cited the dismissal of two female cheerleaders for his ties to former tight end Chris Cooley.
“The female staff were fired, and the employee was – there were no repercussions other than that he was banned from having extra sex with the cheerleaders,” Maloney’s summary reads.
The team’s former chief operating officer, Brian Lafemina, testified that when Snyder was informed of sexual harassment complaints made against former broadcaster Larry Michael, he dismissed the allegations by saying Michael was a “lover” who “won’t hurt anyone.” Michael later resigned.
Former team CEO Jason Friedman told the committee that team culture “glorifies drinking and takes women”.
The commission previously provided details of Friedman’s allegations of financial wrongdoing against the team in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission. The team denied the accusations.
At a congressional roundtable in February, Tiffany Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing director for the team, told committee members that Snyder harassed her at a team dinner, put his hand on her thigh and pressed her toward his limousine. Snyder described the accusations directly against him as “blatant lies.”
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