On Tuesday, Will Hobson and Liz Clarke accused owner Dan Snyder of attempting to obstruct the investigation into the workplace culture of the Washington Football Team. The article written by them in the Washington Post, detailed several ways that Snyder was alleged to have interfered with the work of lawyer and investigator Beth Wilkinson.
On Wednesday, league Commissioner Roger Goodell emphatically came to Snyder’s defense.
“We went through a very lengthy period of investigation and discussions. 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.”
The team originally hired Wilkinson to look into the allegations of sexual harassment and other workplace misconduct at the organization.
Big Fine
The NFL ultimately took over that investigation and subsequently fined Washington $10 million. They stated that ownership and senior officials had paid little attention to sexual harassment and workplace issues. They concluded that “the culture at the club was toxic.” They did not release any of their findings publicly.
Amongst other things, the Post article alleged that a woman who had already been granted a settlement of $1.6 Million, was offered additional “hush money” by Snyder’s attorneys to not speak to Wilkinson.
Snyder’s attorneys of course denied the accusations.
The report also alleged that Snyder hired private investigators to harass and intimidate people from participating in the investigation.
As has become the norm, political pressure was applied by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Illinois) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) for the league to hand over any evidence regarding Snyder’s interference.