NFL blames Washington Commanders for withholding documents in sexual harassment investigation

[ad_1]

The NFL is pointing to the Washington Commanders as the ones to blame in withholding documents involving the team’s sexual harassment and office misconduct allegations, according to a letter sent by the league’s legal counsel to US Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Raja Krishnamoorthi.

In letter obtained by The Athletic on Thursday, the league acknowledged that an e-discovery vendor used by Wilkinson Stekloff, the league-hired firm leading the investigation, possesses approximately 109,000 team documents collected in the case. The league wrote the vendor couldn’t turn over the documents unless Washington consented “because of its concern that it could be sued by the team or its owner,” the letter said.

According to the league, that consent was denied by Washington.

“The NFL promptly directed the team to provide its consent to the vendor, but the team repeatedly has refused to do so,” the league stated 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.”

Washington owner Daniel 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.”

The league said Wednesday it would hire an investigator to examine sexual harassment allegations made last week by a former employee of the team against owner Daniel Snyder. The league’s statement contradicted an announcement Wednesday morning by Washington, which said it had hired its own investigative team to look into the allegations brought forth last week by Tiffani A. Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing manager for the team.

Johnston told members of Congress last week that Snyder harassed her at a team dinner, putting his hand on her thigh under the table and later trying to press her toward his limo.

“I do not see any way that a team can do its own investigation of itself,” commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday at his regularly scheduled Super Bowl news conference. “That’s something that we would do. We would do it with an outside expert that would be able to help us come to the conclusion of what the facts were and what really, truly happened so that we can make the right decision from there.”

On Wednesday morning, Washington said it hired Debra Wong Yang, a partner at Gibson, Dunn and Crutche, LLP and a former California Superior Court judge, US attorney for the Central District of California, and Los Angeles Police Department commissioner, to lead its investigation , with former assistant US attorneys Bonnie Jonas and Tiffany Moller of the Pallas Global Group LLC managing it. The team said it would release the investigation’s findings publicly.

Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, the attorneys representing Johnston and more than 40 former Washington employees, said the team’s announcement Wednesday was a “desperate public relations stunt” and a “sham,” and that Johnston would not participate in its investigation.

Banks said her clients “will be happy to participate” in the NFL’s investigation if it is “truly independent” and the league makes the findings public.

“We await communication from the NFL about whether it intends to undertake this investigation independently, and without any common interest agreement with Snyder,” she said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

In a statement released later Thursday, the US House Oversight and Reform Committee confirmed that it received the NFL’s letter, but said the team and the league clearly entered a “joint legal strategy” in regard to the Wilkinson investigation.

“While the NFL and the Commanders continue to point fingers at each other, the fact remains that the NFL still has not turned over the findings of the Wilkinson investigation or the underlying documents to the Committee,” it said. “Until the NFL holds Mr. Snyder accountable and stops hiding the truth about the outrageous workplace conduct under his watch, the League’s claims about transparency and accountability will continue to ring hollow.”

(Picture: Rob Carr/Getty Images)

[ad_2]