Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones Calls Congressional Report On Dan Snyder “Stupid”
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is slamming The House Oversight Committee report regarding the sexual harassment allegations against Washington Commanders Owner Dan Snyder as “stupid” and “biased.” Jones allegedly thinks the findings from the 14-month Congressional probe are driven by politics.
The Committee’s review was Democratic-led and found that Snyder was allegedly directly responsible for the toxic workplace within the Commanders organization but says he tried to cover it up by intimidating witnesses, trying to pay them off and silence them and shifting the blame to former team President Bruce Allen. The report also accuses Roger Goodell and the NFL of being involved in the alleged cover up and of being aware of Snyder’s alleged tactics. The report claims the league and Snyder entered into a joint legal agreement to dictate the discipline following the Beth Wilkinson investigation into the team and to prevent a final report from being released to the public. Instead, the team was fined $10 million dollars and the league found no evidence of Snyder’s direct involvement in the toxic workplace. Congress claims the NFL and Snyder have blocked its access to more than 40,000 documents related to the internal investigation. The Committee also interviewed over 150 people including numerous former employees who testified before Congress.
Snyder, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by a former cheerleader, has denied all of the allegations.
Specifically, Snyder was accused of offering hush money to witnesses, intimidating them with private investigators, and refusing to release former employees from non-disclosure agreements. The report also claimed he was involved with nude videos of cheerleaders taken without their permission. Snyder has denied this.
Jerry Jones went on Audacy’s 105.3 The Fan Friday, a local radio station in Dallas, to discuss his complaints with the Democratic-led committee and its conclusions.
“First of all, I hope our fans see how politically biased this report is,” Jones said. “This report doesn’t even come out if the Republicans were in Congress. It’s that stupid. My point is there is biasness all the way through. There are stories behind the stories.”
It has been reported that both Snyder and Jones support Republicans with both having allegedly donated $1 million each to former president Donald Trump’s inaugural committee. The House Committee, is led by Representative Carolyn Maloney, who is trying to use the report to bolster legislation she is sponsoring to assist victims of workplace harassment. Several Republican members have been outspoken about their disagreement over Congress investigating private workplace matters.
On the same day the 79-page report was made public by the Committee, accusing Snyder of evading questions and providing misleading answers more than 100 times, the GOP released its own response. The response was highly critical of the Committee’s findings and investigation and shifted blame to former President Bruce Allen, who was largely painted as a victim of Snyder by the House Committee’s report.
Jones is a rare ally for Snyder, compared to other NFL owners. Colts Owner Jim Irsay recently spoke publicly about how Snyder should be held accountable if the allegations are true and said he is waiting to hear the results of a new investigation into Snyder by the NFL, led by Mary Jo White. White also investigated claims against former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.
“I believe that there’s merit to remove him as the owner of the Redskins (sic). I think it’s something we have to review, we have to look at all the evidence and be thorough in going forward, but I think it’s something that has to be given serious consideration.” Irsay said in October.
The Committee’s report accuses Snyder of using a defamation lawsuit against his former partners to try to subpoena documents he could use against former team employees who were willing to speak out against him. The report claims Snyder hired private investigators to help him with the lawsuit against his former partner John Moag and a publication that attempted to link him to Jeffrey Epstein, but instead used the private eyes to compile “dossiers” and pull emails from employee accounts to use to defend himself in presentations to the NFL related to the workplace harassment allegations against him.
Jones thinks Snyder and the Committee’s efforts are being fueled by politics and a female attorney looking to stop workplace settlements. Jones himself has acknowledged settling with former team employees and associates in the past over a variety of allegations, including voyeurism by an ex-employee and a sexual assault allegation against him.
Jones told the Audacy show K&C Masterpiece this:
“The facts are that Mr. Snyder’s minority partners really went out a long way to try and make him sell. He ended up buying them out. But a lot of the testimony, I was involved in firsthand. I was among the handful of owners that looked at all of the transcripts, that looked at all of the messages, that looked at all of the data. The attorney is on a campaign, the woman attorney, to stop having settlements when you have workplace settlements.”
The Commanders and Cowboys are both sitting in playoff spots at the moment. The Cowboys are 10-3 and two games back from the NFC East-leading Philadelphia Eagles but they hold the fifth seed which is the first of three wild card spots. The Commanders are 7-5-1 and sit as the second wild card team as the sixth seed. These two teams will meet up in week 18 on January 8th in Dallas.
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