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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell denies that Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder successfully interfered with the league’s investigation into misconduct at the organization.
“We went through a very lengthy period of investigation and discussions,” Goodell said at a press conference during the NFL’s winter meetings. “The one thing I can say with a 100% assurance is that it didn’t interfere with the work that our investigator did. We were able to access all the people that she wanted to access, have multiple conversations with those people. There’s always a little bit of a tug and a pull with particularly lawyers and law firms. That’s something that I think we were able to overcome and make sure that we came to the right conclusion.”
Earlier this week, Snyder and the Washington Football Team were the subject of what feels like the hundredth investigative exposé by the Washington Post about them in recent memory.
The story said that “lawyers and private investigators working on Snyder’s behalf took steps that potential witnesses … viewed as attempts to interfere with the NFL’s investigation.”
The Washington Post story further alleges that Snyder offered to sweeten the pot and add to a settlement with a woman who accused him of sexual misconduct if she declined to speak to league investigators. Snyder settled with his accuser for $1.6 million in 2009.
Goodell chose his words very carefully. If you look at them closely, he does not say that Snyder did not attempt to impede the league’s investigation — merely that he did not succeed in doing so.
In addition to the Snyder dilemma, the Washington Football Team has faced myriad other allegations of sexual misconduct, including persistent claims brought by former cheerleaders.
In July, the NFL fined Snyder and the organization $10 million. Snyder, in title, stepped aside from presiding over day-to-day operations of the team, and his wife, Tanya, stepped in. Nonetheless, in October Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported that Dan Snyder has been to all of the team’s games.
The results of the league investigation into the Washington Football Team were sealed, and the only aspect of it that has publicly come out were emails between Jon Gruden and former team president Bruce Allen. As a result of insensitivity about race, gender and sexuality in emails that leaked in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Gruden had to resign from his job as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. Gruden subsequently sued the league and Goodell, accusing them of “selectively leaking” his emails in a “malicious” attempt to destroy his career.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who is chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, have requested more transparency from the NFL about their investigation into the Washington Football Team.
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