Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder "permitted and participated in" his team's "troubling conduct," and made a "coordinated effort to hide" misconduct with the NFL, a House committee wrote in a report released Thursday.
The report, called "How the NFL and the Washington Commanders Covered Up Decades of Sexual Misconduct," states that the team had a "decades-long toxic workplace culture," and an investigation found that "the League failed to release detailed findings from an internal investigation" conducted by attorney Beth Wilkinson.
This internal probe uncovered that "'[b]ullying and intimidation,' 'sexual harassment,' and a 'culture of fear' pervaded the Commanders organization 'for many years' and that senior executives not only failed to stop it but 'engaged in inappropriate conduct themselves.' Despite acknowledging these alarming conclusions, the NFL refused to disclose the full scope of conduct or seek meaningful accountability."
It report also states that "the NFL and the Commanders did not fully comply with the Committee's requests for documents and information," and the NFL "refused to produce more than 40,000 responsive documents, including the findings of the Wilkinson investigation and materials from Ms. Wilkinson's files."
Snyder is singled out as having "obstructed the Committee's inquiry" after he "refused to appear" at a public hearing and "sought to avoid service of a subpoena." At a private deposition, he claimed not to remember the answers to questions posed by the panel more than 100 times, including on basic questions about his role at the team owner. He "also gave misleading testimony about his efforts to interfere with the Wilkinson investigation."
According to the report, "The NFL chose to bury Ms. Wilkinson's findings and whitewash the misconduct it uncovered. Rather than seek real accountability, the NFL aligned its legal interests with Mr. Snyder's, failed to curtail his abusive tactics, and buried the investigation's findings."
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, told ESPN: "We saw efforts that we have never seen before, at least I haven't. The NFL knew about it, and they took no responsibility."
Maloney added that league officials "were acting like they were doing something. Then they turn around and fix it so she can't talk. Her report is never going to be made public, yet she was supposed to be hired to address it. The hypocrisy. The coordinated effort to hide what they acknowledged."
An NFL spokesperson said the league had not seen the report and declined to comment.