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In a letter to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, a lawyer for Dan Snyder wrote that the Washington Commanders owner will testify in a deposition later this month — with one caveat.
Snyder wants to appear voluntarily as his legal team continues to fight Congress’ efforts to subpoena him.
“There is no legitimate need for a subpoena to Mr. Snyder,” Karen Patton Seymour, one of Snyder’s lawyers, wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Front Office Spots.
“The Committee’s proffered justification — that Mr. Snyder would otherwise invoke non-disclosure agreements “to withhold information from the Committee” — is baseless. Mr. Snyder is not subject to any NDA that conditions his ability to share information solely on receipt of a subpoena.”
Snyder’s legal team stated that Snyder would appear before the committee for a deposition on July 28 via teleconference from Israel, where Snyder and his family are slated to attend memorial services on the one-year anniversary of his mother’s death.
The Oversight Committee issued a subpoena for Snyder on June 24, two days after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell testified voluntarily at a hearing that focused on the Commanders’ allegedly toxic workplace culture.
It doesn’t appear that the subpoena has successfully been served to Snyder.
Snyder was unable to make the June 22 hearing because his representatives said he was in France on a business trip, leaving Goodell to handle the hearing solo.
House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) wrote in a letter to Snyder’s legal team on Tuesday that a subpoena was justified because Snyder’s attorneys “have made clear to Committee staff that a voluntary appearance would exclude matters covered by non-disclosure agreements.
“Mr. Snyder has a troubling history of using NDAs to cover up workplace misconduct — behavior that is central to our investigation — and it would be highly inappropriate for him to employ the same tactic to withhold information from the Committee,” Maloney wrote.
Maloney added that “voluntary testimony would also be inappropriate in light of Mr. Snyder’s month-long refusal to cooperate with the Committee.”
Seymour pushed back on the assertion that Snyder hasn’t been cooperative.
“While Mr. Snyder was already committed to a work engagement overseas on the single date the Committee offered for his appearance, we repeatedly reiterated Mr. Snyder’s willingness to cooperate and offered to find alternate dates for him to appear,” Seymour wrote.
The Oversight Committee had no immediate comment on Snyder’s legal team’s latest letter to the committee.
“The Oversight Committee refuses to take ‘yes’ for an answer,” a spokesperson for Snyder said in a statement to FOS.
