Congress Questions Independence of NFL’s Investigation of Alleged Workplace Misconduct at Washington

New documents were released by Congress, which were provided by the league.

Documents released by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform raise questions about whether the NFL’s investigation into the Washington Commanders was truly independent. 

It revealed that not only did Washington agree to a written report being created of lawyer Beth Wilkinson’s findings and recommendations, but the league would not be able to release the findings without permission of franchise owner Daniel Snyder, according to the documents. 

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had previously stated that Wilkinson presented her findings orally, and the league’s wire service wrote in December 2021, “The NFL said there was no written report of Wilkinson’s inquiry.” 

“Your decision not to release the written report is deeply concerning,” Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) wrote in a letter to Goodell.

These documents, which included a Common Interest Agreement between the NFL and Washington and an engagement letter between Wilkinson’s firm and the franchise, were provided to the committee by the league. Portions of the documents have been redacted. 

The first document show that the two parties agreed to pursue a “joint legal strategy” and “appears to apply retroactively to July 16, 2020 -- the beginning of the internal investigation by Ms. Wilkinson,” while the latter confirms a written report was to be created. Maloney and Krishnamoorthi sent a new letter to Goodell on Friday, revealing that the committee learned the commissioner “personally directed that Ms. Wilkinson was to present her findings to you orally rather than provide a written report.”

“This new information raises doubts about the NFL’s purported commitment to independence, transparency, and integrity in addressing workplace misconduct at the WFT.”

According to the statement issued by the committee Friday morning, it is interpreted that under the Common Interest Agreement, “the NFL may not have been able to release the results of the Wilkinson investigation to the public without the permission of team owner Daniel Snyder, who himself has been accused of multiple acts of sexual misconduct by his employees, most recently during yesterday’s Committee roundtable.”

The league withdrew from the agreement in October, around when Congress launched its investigation, according to Maloney and Krishnamoorthi’s letter to Goodell. 

“These documents, which were gathered and created as part of the Wilkinson investigation, were stored on servers of a third-party vendor, where they remain. Now, after the NFL’s withdrawal from the agreement, each party claims that absent the other’s consent, they cannot access the documents, let alone release them to the Committee. By dissolving their common interest agreement and withholding consent, the parties may be attempting to create a legal limbo to stop the Committee from obtaining these key investigation documents.”

League spokesperson Brian McCarthy said in a statement to Sports Illustrated, “We have received the Committee’s letter. We will review it and respond to them. We will continue to cooperate, as we have throughout the investigation. To date, we have shared nearly 80,000 pages of documents and made many others available for the Committee to review, in addition to responding to questions from the Committee, both in writing and in the course of numerous discussions.

“The Committee has requested many documents which are clearly protected by the attorney-client privilege or are attorney-work product. The League, and not the team, has and will determine which information it is in a position to produce.”

This comes a day after the committee held a hybrid roundtable with several former employees of the franchise, and Tiffani Johnston detailed new allegations that directly implicated Snyder. 

“I learned that placing me strategically by the owner at a work dinner after this networking event was not for me to discuss business, but to allow him to place his hand on my thigh under the table,” Johnston said in her opening statement. “I learned how to discreetly remove a man’s unwanted hand from my thigh at a crowded dinner table, at a crowded restaurant to avoid a scene. I learned that job survival meant I should continue my conversation with another co-worker rather than to call out Dan Snyder right then, in the moment.

“I also learned later that evening how to awkwardly laugh while Dan Snyder aggressively pushed me towards his limo with his hand on my lower back, encouraging me to ride with him to my car. I learned how to continue to say no even though a situation was getting more awkward, uncomfortable and physical.”

Snyder denied the allegations in a statement on Thursday. However, in a Thursday statement to the Associated Press, McCarthy said: “The NFL is reviewing and will consider Ms. Johnston’s allegations as we would any other new allegations regarding workplace misconduct at the Washington Commanders. We will determine any further action as appropriate.”

Snyder's attorney released the following statement on Friday. 

“The former team employee who spoke for the first time yesterday resigned through a thankful and cheery resignation note more than 13 years ago—citing her '5 and a half wonderful years working for [Washington.]' We understand that she was approached by the Wilkinson law firm in 2020 as part of its investigation, but she refused to be interviewed. The unsworn allegations she made for the first time yesterday against Mr. Snyder are false, and have been categorically denied by Mr. Snyder.

“Regarding today’s letter from the Committee to the NFL, neither Mr. Snyder nor the team has ever done anything to block the Committee from receiving any documents it has requested from the NFL that are not expressly protected by attorney-client privilege or attorney work product.

“Finally, all remaining non-privileged emails are being provided to the Committee shortly.”

The former employees and lawmakers once again called for the findings to be released on Thursday, and Maloney and Krishnamoorth echoed it in Friday’s letter.

“This is a stark departure from the NFL’s prior practices regarding investigations of alleged misconduct. For example, the NFL released a 96-page report by Robert S. Mueller III after an NFL player was caught on video physically abusing his fiancée, as well as a 243-page report regarding the amount of pressure in game balls during the AFC Championship game in 2015, known as ‘DeflateGate.’”

After the team was investigated following allegations of workplace misconduct and sexual harassment within the franchise, the NFL provided only a brief summary of the findings and levied a $10 million fine against the team. Snyder also agreed to temporarily cede control of the team to his wife, Tanya.

The committee’s investigation began in October as the two lawmakers sent a five-page letter to Goodell, asking for him to produce “all documents and communications obtained in connection with the investigation into the WFT, its management, its owners, and any other matter relating to or resulting from the WFT investigation” by Nov. 4. Then, in a letter on Nov. 5, the representatives called for the league and team to release all individuals from their non-disclosure agreements that prevented them from speaking out against Snyder or the Commanders about the work environment.

The investigation was brought on after the Washington Post reported in 2020 that female employees of the team experienced sexual harassment. And later Washington cheerleaders said they had been secretly videotaped while getting undressed, and reached a settlement with the team. 

Friday marks the first time the committee has released any of the documents the league has provided them. Per the letter to Goodell, Maloney and Krishnamoorthi gave a Feb. 14 deadline to produce the following: “(1) Ms. Wilkinson’s findings; (2) the 2,100 documents from the Wilkinson investigation in the NFL’s custody; and (3) the remaining documents central to Ms. Wilkinson’s investigation, which are currently held by a third-party vendor.”