NFL tells members of Congress that Washington Commanders are blocking access to documents from team investigation

CNN

By Jacob Lev, CNN

NFL officials argued in a letter to two US representatives that the Washington Commanders are withholding documents pertaining to the investigation into team owner Dan Snyder.

The letter from the league’s legal counsel, obtained by CNN and dated Wednesday, was to Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, and stated that the league tried to “obtain and review” approximately 109,000 team documents collected by the Wilkinson Stekloff law firm that were in possession of an e-discovery vendor used by the firm during its investigation.

The league’s lawyers added that the vendor refused to turn over the documents unless the team consented because of “its concern that it could be sued by the team or owner.”

The House Committee for Oversight and Reform, of which Maloney and Krishnamoorthi are members, is conducting an investigation into Snyder and the team. Earlier this month, the committee sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell demanding the league cooperate with the committee’s investigation and release the full findings of its internal probe.

According to the letter from the league, the team did not consent.

“The NFL promptly directed the team to provide its consent to the vendor, but the team repeatedly has refused to do so,” the league said in the letter. “As the Committee also knows, the team has insisted that it will only authorize the vendor to release those documents to the team, so that the team’s counsel can review the documents for privilege first (even though these are all documents the team itself previously shared with Wilkinson Stekloff) before deciding unilaterally which documents it will provide to the NFL for production to the Committee.”

The letter continued, “The NFL viewed this as an unacceptable approach because it would prevent the NFL from ensuring that it can produce all responsive, non-privileged documents to the Committee and would delay our production decisions. On Monday, the team approached the NFL about a proposed alternative resolution involving assurances to them that their release of the documents would not result in any waiver of privilege by them.”

Snyder denied these claims on Thursday through his lawyer, Jordan Siev.

“The Commanders have never prevented the NFL from obtaining any non-privileged documents and will not do so in the future,” he said.

When asked for comment, the team shared the same statement.

On Wednesday, NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said the league, and not the team, will conduct the investigation. This followed the Commanders announcing earlier on Wednesday the hiring of an independent firm to investigate.

Goodell was asked Wednesday about Washington’s earlier announcement that the team retained Debra Wong Yang, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP in Los Angeles and a former judge, to manage an independent investigation into Tiffani Johnston’s allegations against Snyder.

The commissioner told reporters at a Super Bowl news conference, “We’ll do an investigation. … I do not see any way that a team can do its own investigation of itself.”

Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing and events coordinator for the team, told a House Oversight Committee roundtable last week that Snyder allegedly put his hand on her thigh during a dinner and aggressively pushed her toward his limousine with his hand on her lower back as she fended off advances.

Goodell said the league treats Johnston’s claims “very seriously.”

Johnston’s attorneys, Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, released a statement Wednesday: “Apparently the NFL also recognized how absurd it was to think Dan Snyder could investigate himself.

“We await communication from the NFL about whether it intends to undertake this investigation independently, and without any common interest agreement with Snyder. If the investigation is truly independent, and the NFL commits to make the findings public, my clients will be happy to participate.”

In 2020, the NFL conducted a yearlong investigation into the Washington franchise’s work environment, and last July handed Snyder a $10 million fine. The investigation concluded that Snyder was responsible for the club’s unprofessional and intimidating culture and that he failed to establish a respectful work environment.

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