Washington owner Dan Snyder reportedly hired detectives, sued ex-employees to disrupt NFL investigation
Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder said that he was "committed to fully cooperating" when the NFL took over the investigation into his team's culture of sexual harassment and misconduct. By this point, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Snyder may not have been telling the truth.
According to another bombshell report from the Washington Post on Tuesday, Snyder used multiple methods to interfere in the NFL's investigation into his team and carry out personal vendettas against current and former employees he believed were speaking to the press.
According to the Post, Snyder tried to prevent the woman who accused him of sexual misconduct in 2009 from speaking to investigators by offering her a monetary bribe. He allegedly collaborated with the team's former general counsel, David Donovan, to file a lawsuit against Beth Wilkinson, the NFL investigator originally hired by Snyder, to stop her from speaking with his accuser.
Snyder reportedly used private investigators to intimidate and keep tabs on current and former employees he suspected of talking to the press. He filed lawsuits against former employees to find out who was speaking to the press, and reportedly used the legal system to compel suspected sources to turn over their phone and email history so he could positively identify them.
Snyder's lawyers reportedly tried to bribe his 2009 accuser
When the investigation into Washington's toxic workplace culture began, Snyder and the team publicly released all current and former employees from their non-disclosure agreements so they could speak to Wilkinson freely. That ostensibly included a former female employee who accused Snyder of sexual misconduct in 2009, an accusation that was reportedly resolved with a $1.6 million private settlement when the woman threatened to sue.
However, when Wilkinson discovered that accusation and tried to speak with her, Snyder reportedly had his lawyers try to stop the interview from taking place. The woman's attorney submitted a letter to the court, which has been sealed but described to the Post by sources with direct knowledge, accusing Snyder's lawyers of offering the woman more money if she refused to speak to Wilkinson about the accusation and the settlement. Snyder's lawyers denied all of those allegations in their own sealed letter, according to the Post.
The woman still intended to speak with Wilkinson — which she eventually did — and when Snyder and his lawyers found out, the Post reported that they collaborated with the team's retired general counsel David Donovan to file a lawsuit against Wilkinson to prevent her from speaking with Snyder's accuser and compelling her to destroy all documents related to that part of her overall investigation. Donovan claimed that Wilkinson's report, which at the time he assumed would be released by the NFL, would "disparage" his original investigation into the allegations against Snyder. (Donovan had cleared Snyder of all wrongdoing in his original investigation.)
The suit only existed for two weeks, and court records viewed by the Post show that Donovan's filing included written opinions and declarations of support from lawyers hired by Snyder.
Snyder reportedly tried to identify, intimidate Washington Post sources
According to records viewed by the Post, Snyder's lawyers submitted numerous petitions in federal court just days after the Post's first report about sexual misconduct and harassment at WFT. The petitions were in part meant to expose the names of former employees who had spoken to the Post for their story.
At the same time, private investigators hired by Snyder reportedly began appearing at the homes of former employees, and started calling their friends and family. Some of those former employees or their lawyers told the Post that they believed those visits and calls from private investigators were meant to scare them into not participating in the NFL's investigation.
Snyder went even further to identify former employees he suspected of speaking to the press, reportedly using the defamation lawsuit he filed against the owners of the Indian website meaww.com to suss them out. Snyder had accused the website of taking money from "unnamed conspirators" to publish false stories about him, some of which connected him to billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
But for Snyder, the lawsuit in India held strategic value that went beyond holding MEAWW accountable. It enabled him, via a relatively obscure legal provision, to go to U.S. federal courts to demand emails, texts, phone records and other communications from anyone he could reasonably claim might have helped plant the Epstein stories. And in the process, he could learn who else those people were talking to — and, in some cases, what they were saying.
Each time a judge forced someone to turn over records, Snyder’s list of suspects grew. Then his lawyers went to court again, eventually filing claims against ten people or companies in seven states from August 2020 through April 2021.
Could Snyder have leaked the Gruden emails?
Wilkinson's investigation into Washington ended with no report being released and minimal "punishments" for Snyder. He was no longer allowed to run the team and was fined $10 million, but the situation was actually a gift: No report on the investigation meant no damning information about Snyder's alleged conduct would be released.
Not long after commissioner Roger Goodell declined to release Wilkinson's report, the infamous emails between former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden and former WFT general manager Bruce Allen were leaked to the press. The contents of the emails contained racist, misogynistic, and homophobic language, and cost Gruden his job. But the Post found a link between those emails and Snyder, suggesting that he could have leaked the emails and that Allen was his target.
Snyder fired Allen in 2019, and he suspected that Allen was the main provider of damaging information about himself and the team. Snyder had tried to avoid paying Allen his contractually mandated salary, and was also upset about text messages. Allen had sent Ron Rivera a "congratulations" text message after he was hired as Washington's head coach, but hadn't sent one to Snyder, who was apparently miffed about it. Snyder had fired Allen mere weeks before Rivera was hired.
Snyder's lawyers later accused Allen of being the source of the false MEAWW stories, and asked a judge in Phoenix to compel him to turn over emails and text messages. Snyder eventually dropped the case against Allen, but not before including the redacted Gruden-Allen emails in a court filing.
In one of Snyder’s last filings in his case against Allen, his lawyers attached redacted emails between Allen and others, including then-ESPN analyst Jon Gruden. The emails, Snyder’s lawyers said, were meant to show how often Allen communicated with the media. But not long after, unredacted versions of the emails ended up in the hands of reporters.
Goodell, who has continually refused to release Wilkinson's report about Washington despite requests from Congress, and declined to release any of the tens of thousands of emails that were included in the investigation, said in late October that Snyder had been held accountable for his actions.
