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Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder and the House Oversight Committee agreed to terms of a deposition roughly two hours before it began.
Snyder was put under oath as his testimony began at 8 a.m. ET. He appeared via Zoom from Israel, where he’s attending memorial services for his mother a year after she died.
The deposition was ongoing as it reached the five-hour mark, a congressional source told Front Office Sports.
“It’s expected to go all day,” the source said.
Snyder’s appearance was voluntary, something the House Oversight Committee — which has investigated the Commanders’ toxic workplace culture allegations since November — and Snyder’s legal team have argued over terms for the deposition for weeks.
“Mr. Snyder has committed to providing full and complete testimony, and to answer the Committee’s questions about his knowledge of and contributions to the Commanders’ toxic work environment, as well as his efforts to interfere with the NFL’s internal investigation, without hiding behind non-disclosure or other confidentiality agreements,” a House Oversight Committee spokesperson said in a statement. “Should Mr. Snyder fail to honor his commitments, the Committee is prepared to compel his testimony on any unanswered questions upon his return to the United States.”
Congressional depositions are conducted behind closed doors, although the Oversight Committee has the discretion to release the deposition as it did in written form for others who spoke to staffers.
Snyder’s lawyers have insisted Snyder would appear voluntarily even as the Oversight Committee has made efforts to serve Snyder with a subpoena that began two days after he missed the June 22 hearing.
Snyder had a “long-standing Commanders-related business conflict” in France when last month’s hearing took place. That left NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as the only witness at the hearing.
The main reason the Oversight Committee sought to subpoena Snyder was over concerns that Snyder would use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) of current former employees as a reason not to answer some questions.
“The Committee has repeatedly and wrongly suggested that Mr. Snyder has invoked NDAs to ‘cover up’ misconduct and prevent witnesses from sharing information with the Committee,” Karen Seymour, one of Snyder’s lawyers, wrote in a letter to Congress on July 13. “Mr. Snyder has done nothing of the sort. As the Committee well knows, Mr. Snyder has not invoked any NDA to limit the information provided by witnesses that have spoken with the Committee.”
Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney wrote in a July 12 letter to Snyder’s lawyers that her committee would “proceed with a subpoena in place to ensure that Mr. Snyder’s testimony will be full and complete and will not be restricted in the way it would be if the deposition were conducted voluntarily.”
