NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says he has no authority to remove Daniel Snyder as owner of Washington Commanders amid continued control over the organization’s workplace culture and accusations by female employees of widespread sexual harassment by team leaders.
Goodell testified before members of Congress on Wednesday at a hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. At one point, near the end of more than two hours of testimony, Goodell was questioned by spokesman Rashid Tlaib (D-Michigan), who asked if Goodell and the league “wanted to do more” to punish Snyder.
After initially asking if he would recommend removing Snyder as owner of Commanders, Tlibe followed Goodell’s question: “Will you remove him?”
“I have no authority to remove him, Congressman,” Goodell replied.
An NFL owner can be removed by only a three-quarters (so 24 out of 32) majority of other owners, although Goodell has the option to officially recommend such a vote.
Snyder was invited to testify, but declined, citing overseas commitments and concerns about the due process. The chairman of the commission, Carolyn Maloney (New York), announced during the hearing that she planned to issue a summons to force him to testify.
“The NFL does not want or cannot hold Mr Snyder responsible,” Maloney said. “That is why I am now announcing my intention to issue a subpoena for Mr Snyder to testify next week. The Commission will not be hindered in its investigation against the Washington commanders. “
Goodell told the committee that the team’s culture had changed as a result of an investigation by lawyer Beth Wilkinson, and that Snyder was “held accountable.”
After Wilkinson presented his findings to Goodell last year, the NFL fined the team $ 10 million and Snyder withdrew from his day-to-day operations. However, the league did not release a written report on Wilkinson’s findings, a decision Goodell said was aimed at protecting the privacy of former employees who spoke to investigators.
Following Wednesday’s hearing, the commanders sent a letter to the team’s staff – a copy of which was received from ESPN – which said in part: “We believe that statements made in the media critical of our organization do not accurately reflect our positive transformation and current a reality of the Washington Commanders’ organization that exists today. “
The commission published findings from its eight-month investigation ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, accusing Snyder of conducting its own “shadow investigation” that seeks to discredit former employees, hires private investigators to intimidate witnesses and uses a lawsuit abroad as a pretext for receiving phone records and emails.
The 29-page note alleges that Snyder tried to discredit the people accusing him and other team leaders of misconduct, and also tried to influence a team investigation conducted by Wilkinson’s NFL team.
Snyder’s lawyers presented a 100-slide PowerPoint presentation to the NFL, including “private text messages, emails, phone diaries, and transcripts of conversations and social media posts from nearly 50 people Mr. Snyder apparently believed were involved in a conspiracy to humiliate him, “the commission said.
Asked about the alleged shadow investigation, Goodell said: “Any action that would discourage people from going out would be inappropriate.”
In a statement, a Snyder spokesman described the report and the hearing as a “politically accused show trial” and said Congress should not investigate “a problem a football team dealt with years ago”.
Lawyers Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent more than 40 former employees of the team, again called on Goodell to release a report from Wilkinson’s investigation, calling it “stunning and discouraging” to hear him say that Snyder was held accountable.
“Today, the commission released a horrific report showing that Snyder and his lawyers also monitored and investigated the complainants, their lawyers, witnesses and journalists that Goodell knew about and did nothing to address,” Banks and Katz said in a statement.
Maloney introduced legislation to limit the use of non-disclosure agreements in the workplace and to offer protection to employees whose professional images are misused. Among the accusations against the commanders are that the team’s employees made a video with obscene snippets from a photo shoot with cheerleaders.
Republicans on the committee have accused Democrats of pursuing an NFL team to divert attention from more pressing issues and to go beyond the committee’s mission.
“The primary responsibility of this committee is to oversee the executive branch, but throughout this Congress, Democrats have turned a blind eye to the Biden administration,” said James Komer, a member of the Kentucky Republican Party. “Instead, the Oversight Committee is investigating a private organization for misconduct that occurred years ago.”
ESPN’s Tisha Thompson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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