Roger, Dan, Congress, and the Truth

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June 28, 2022

by Steve Thomas

I watched all two and a half excruciating hours of last week’s hearing by the House of Representatives Congressional Committee on Oversight and Reform, featuring NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.  I had to split it up over two nights, for reasons of both time and boredom, but I got through it, and I’m worse off for the experience.  My primary motivation for wasting 150 minutes that I’ll never get back was so you didn’t have to watch it.

I’ll save everyone the trouble and summarize the whole miserable event: we learned nothing that was really new, and nothing of note was accomplished or discussed.  This sort of thing is par for the course for a Congress that is typically only concerned with the self-interests of its members.  Roger Goodell was present via Zoom for a over an hour, being brought on after an extended period of self-congratulatory dribble and posturing by a host of stupid and useless congressional members.  For his part, Goodell held up very well, sticking to the story and not admitting much of anything that wasn’t already known.  Here’s what Goodell said, in four easy bullet points:

  • Washington’s team culture was terrible and inappropriate
  • The NFL conducted an investigation and took appropriate steps to punish the team
  • The NFL cannot release certain documents related to the investigation out of concern for the privacy of the witnesses
  • Washington should not have done its own investigation

Goodell stuck to his story, without deviation, and pushed back against the congressional members at times when they repeatedly interrupted him.  For the most part, the congressional members were either uninterested in or incapable of asking real questions, and repeated themselves over and over again.  The hearing was mostly a pointless waste a time.

At the bitter end, the committee chairperson indicated an intent to subpoena Dan Snyder to sit for a deposition.  Then, we learned Monday that Snyder has allegedly been trying to dodge service of this subpoena, and his attorney apparently disclaimed authority to accept service on Snyder’s behalf.  As a practicing attorney, I can tell you that this is idiotic and pointless behavior from someone who should know better.  Yes, it’s much harder to serve a billionaire who always has security and other people all around him, but Snyder can’t avoid service forever.  The process server will get him eventually, and it’s just going to irritate the committee.  These are not the actions of a serious businessman.  If Snyder is out of the country, he should authorize his attorney to accept service on his behalf and then work out a suitable date.  Snyder is being ridiculous and has done yet another thing of which he should be ashamed.

Interestingly, several congressional members – I assume Republicans, although I didn’t know who some of them were, and I had no interest in finding out – made the same point that I’ve been making since the beginning, which is that this investigation is improper and a waste of congressional resources.  Their point, and my point, is that Congress has no business investigating one single private, closely-held organization.  While certainly Congress has previously interviewed many, many private figures and corporate representatives, and have investigated issues in professional sports, such as steroid use in baseball, the idea that these grandstanding fools think it’s okay to waste federal resources on one single private company is an abhorrent, disgusting, and authoritarian abuse of power.   Regardless, that was the 2.5 hour hearing.  We didn’t learn much of anything of substance or that was new.  You’re welcome.

The committee also released a 27 page summary memo of findings and full transcripts of their depositions of former Redskins chief operating officer David Pauken, former Vice President of Premium Ticket Sales Jason Friedman, former Redskins cheerleader Abigail Dymond Welch, and former team president Brian Lafemina, all of which totaled several hundred pages, combined.  I read the 27 page memo and all of these transcripts, again so you don’t have to.  You can thank me later.  In general, there were a few new Dan Snyder stories and an interesting look into Washington’s business practice, but at the end of the day, they didn’t reveal much that should surprise anyone who’s been paying attention.

I won’t spend many, many words giving specific summaries of the depositions, but I’ll say that the depositions of Pauken and Friedman, particularly Pauken, paint a bleak picture of team culture on the business side of the organization.  Pauken claimed to have direct knowledge of extensive alcohol use, mainly at events outside of the outside, but also some in the office.  More salaciously, he also revealed a regular presence of women who he believed to be prostitutes cavorting with Snyder and other team executives.  Both Pauken and Friedman made allegations of mistreatment of women by various senior team executives, including former “voice of the Redskins” Larry Michael and others.  Pauken also relayed the now well-known allegations that Snyder committed some form of sexual misconduct against a female team employee in a private bedroom on a private jet, as well as the now-infamous story of Snyder ordering him to pour milk under the carpet of the suite leased by Washington Nationals owner Mark Lerner.

Most importantly, both Pauken and Friedman alleged that this terrible culture stemmed directly from Snyder, dating back to the beginning of his ownership tenure, which runs contrary to the team’s attempt to blame this culture on Bruce Allen, who was only with the team from 2009 – 2019.

Welch appeared before the committee voluntarily, and thus her testimony was limited by her non-disclosure agreement with the team, so her only relevant testimony concerned a person purporting to be a private investigator hired by the team and the Reed Smith law firm making multiple attempts to contact her at her home in Austin, Texas.  She stated that she eventually spoke to him, but didn’t say much of interest.

Lafemina’s testimony mostly concerned the team’s business operations, and didn’t have the salacious details and stories of Pauken and Friedman.  It was clear from his testimony that when he came to Washington, he intended to generally change and improve the culture of the organization and its business practices, but faced significant internal resistance.  He also made it known that he had been in arbitration with the team for two years as a result of the characterization of his termination as a “for cause” event.

Having said and read all of this, what are my conclusions?  First, we don’t know whether or not there’s any truth to the direct allegations against Snyder in the private jet accusation.  That evidence is simply not in the public record, and a $1.9M settlement is not an indicator or admission of liability.  However, in my view, it appears more likely than not from this testimony that the allegation that Snyder attempted to “steer”, for lack of a better term, a female team employee to his limousine is probably accurate to one extent or the other.  More importantly, however, all of this evidence paints a picture of Snyder as being far more involved and responsible for a corporate culture that was by all accounts toxic and, at a minimum, unfair and abusive to women, than the team would have the public believe.  The information presented leads me to conclude that Snyder actually is the biggest problem – which isn’t surprising in the least.

The million dollar question is whether or not Snyder’s tenure as owner will one way or the other come to an end as a result.  That’s a question without an answer, although I think it’s extremely unlikely that the NFL will initiate a formal vote of the other owners absent some sort of direct criminal sexual misconduct accusation against him, which is currently not the case.  Many NFL owners have skeletons in their closets, and in my view, they don’t want to open up the possibility of a formal vote as an option, because that may eventually come back to haunt them.  I could be wrong, but if Snyder goes, I think it will be via an informal process in which one or more influential owners come to him and tell him, essentially, that the gig is up and if it doesn’t leave, they’ll make life hell for him.  That strikes me as much more likely than a formal process.

Whether that happens or not, though, is anybody’s guess.  Certainly, Snyder has alienated the fanbase – including me – and embarrassed himself, the league, and the Washington Redskins Washington Football Team Washington Commanders Washington franchise.

It’s time to go, Dan.  Take your billions and hit the road.