“Making false statements to Congress and obstructing Congressional investigations are serious crimes,” Raskin wrote in the letter, a copy of which The Washington Post obtained. “This Committee cannot conduct effective oversight if witnesses misrepresent and obscure the truth. I therefore urge you to hold Mr. Snyder accountable by referring him to the Department of Justice for investigation and, if warranted, prosecution, for lying under oath and obstructing this Committee’s investigation.”
Comer is unlikely to do what Raskin is requesting. Republicans on the committee repeatedly criticized the Democratic-led investigation of Snyder and the Commanders as a misuse of the committee’s time and resources, then immediately declared the investigation over when the results of November’s midterm elections ensured they would take leadership of the committee in January.
Raskin’s letter cited discrepancies between Snyder’s testimony to the committee and the findings of an NFL investigation, conducted by attorney Mary Jo White, announced last month.
The NFL announced at a special league meeting July 20 that Snyder would pay the league $60 million as part of the closing of the sale of his franchise after White’s investigation concluded that the team withheld revenue it should have shared with other franchises and that Snyder sexually harassed a former team employee, Tiffani Johnston.
Johnston’s allegations first became public at a congressional roundtable in February 2022, leading the NFL to launch White’s investigation. The financial allegations against the team, made by former Commanders ticketing and sales executive Jason Friedman, were detailed by the committee in an April 2022 letter to the Federal Trade Commission.
“Mr. Snyder’s statements under oath to this Committee, claiming Ms. Johnston’s allegations ‘didn’t happen’ and were ‘not true,’ as well as his assertion that ‘the whole claim is not true’ are inconsistent with the findings of Ms. White’s investigation,” Raskin wrote Wednesday. “Mr. Snyder’s testimony to the Committee suggests a deliberate effort to provide false testimony in an effort to obstruct a Congressional investigation. These false statements are particularly troubling given that they appear to be part of a pattern of obstruction and misrepresentation that included Mr. Snyder’s efforts to smear Mr. Friedman and his characterization of Ms. Johnston’s account as ‘outright lies,’ as well as his efforts to interfere with a prior investigation conducted by Beth Wilkinson.”
The committee, then called the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, conducted a nearly 14-month investigation beginning in October 2021. In December, it issued a 79-page final report, titled “Conduct Detrimental: How the NFL and the Washington Commanders Covered Up Decades of Sexual Misconduct.” In the report, the committee wrote that Snyder evaded questions by saying more than 100 times that he did not know or could not recall information and gave “misleading” answers when he testified remotely last year as part of the investigation.
According to the report, Snyder “obstructed” the committee’s investigation and failed to fulfill his attorney’s pledge that he would provide full and complete testimony. The report also said Snyder “engaged in a series of attempts to interfere with the Committee’s investigation” and that he “publicly assailed witnesses, refused to release former employees from their confidentiality obligations, and blocked the Committee’s access to tens of thousands of documents collected during” a previous NFL investigation conducted by Wilkinson.
Snyder participated remotely in a sworn deposition for more than 10 hours in July 2022 after he and the committee agreed on the terms of the interview following weeks of negotiations. Snyder refused the committee’s invitation to take part in a June 2022 hearing on Capitol Hill at which NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell testified remotely. Snyder’s attorney subsequently refused to accept electronic service of a subpoena.
John Brownlee and Stuart Nash, attorneys for the Commanders, wrote in a statement when the report was issued: “These Congressional investigators demonstrated, almost immediately, that they were not interested in the truth, and were only interested in chasing headlines by pursuing one side of the story. Today’s report is the predictable culmination of that one-sided approach.”
Republican staffers wrote to Republican committee members in a December memo that committee Democrats had “chosen to weaponize the power of Congress against a single private workplace,” adding that the investigation’s goal had been to force Snyder “to give up the Team.”
Snyder sold the Commanders to a group led by private equity investor Josh Harris for $6.05 billion, the record sale price for an NFL franchise. Snyder bought the team and its stadium from the Jack Kent Cooke estate in 1999 for $800 million. He and Harris signed an exclusive sale agreement in May. NFL team owners voted unanimously during last month’s special league meeting in Bloomington, Minn., to ratify the sale, and the deal closed the following day.
Friedman filed a lawsuit last month in the civil division of Loudoun County Circuit Court, accusing the Commanders and one of their attorneys of defamation. The team called the lawsuit “completely without merit.”
Read More:Ranking Democrat urges committee to refer Daniel Snyder case to DOJ
2023-08-16 19:45:00