USA TODAY Sports
At one point in the ongoing drama involving the upper echelons of the Washington football team, majority owner Daniel Snyder circumvented the notion that minority owner Dwight Schar was behind efforts to defame Snyder, part of an apparent strategy to force Snyder to sell his stake in The franchise. Now, Snyder has stopped talking.
Snyder made a statement (ie, testimony written under penalty of perjury, but without being sworn) in pending federal disputes over the efforts of three minority owners to sell their team shares in a mass transaction to the same group of buyers. The five-page document, available to the public and entitled “First supplementary statement by Daniel M. Snyder in opposition to the plaintiffs’ emergency motion in breach of the November 19, 2020, Court order”, contains 19 numbered paragraphs describing Snyder’s belief that Schar was involved in an “extortion campaign” with the aim of forcing Snyder to sell the team.
In the document, Snyder initially focuses on the potential connection between Schar and Monday’s report that Snyder settled a sexual misconduct in 2009 for $ 1.6 million. Although Snyder does not expressly state that Schar has leaked the information to the Washington Post, Snyder suggests that a recent lawsuit by Schar and the other minority owners contained “spurious and irrelevant material” that, when cited by the story of the Post in relation to the agreement, “unduly giving the misleading impression. . . that there was merit in the allegations of misconduct “and that the purpose of the lawsuit by Schar and the other minority owners” is now clear: to try to continue to defame me in an effort to gain an advantage in this trade dispute “.
Snyder then claims in the statement that Schar is “aware that no evidence of wrongdoing was found after an investigation by a respected law firm”, and that Schar “nevertheless threatened to reveal [the settlement] to discredit me and embarrass my family, but that the insurer decided to resolve. ”While not expressly linked to the $ 1.6 million settlement report, the context clearly indicates that this statement represents Snyder’s answer to the question of whether he was involved in misconduct in relation to the events leading up to the settlement.
Snyder’s statement revolves around the broader claim that Schar tried for months, through articles that ended up appearing in the Washington Post “This characterized the team and me personally in a negative way”, to pressure Snyder to sell. Snyder says Schar “channeled information about me and the team to Mary Ellen Blair, a former executive assistant on the team, to be distributed to The Washington Post. “Snyder also states in the statement that Blair confirmed that Schar” said [her] to share information with The Washington Post, ”And that Schar’s daughter bought Blair a“ burnt phone ”to try to escape detection by Mr. Schar’s conspiratorial communications. “
Snyder’s statement later claims that, “[f]or in the past five months, there have been repeated threats from Mr. Schar and others associated with him. ”Snyder’s statement alleges that on July 25, Schar threatened Snyder’s personal lawyer,“ telling him that the threat he was trying to exert on me would come if I didn’t ‘just sell the team’; that I ‘will have no choice’; that the story ‘will kill Dan’; and that I ‘will suffer a terrible existence.’ “
Snyder then said in the statement that investment banker John Moag “threatened me with exactly the same things via text message.” Snyder then quotes Moag’s message: “If you continue your game, you know what I know and what I never talked about. And you know it has nothing to do with media shit … it’s more serious shit. If you want a shitty show, we’re there too. “
Snyder concludes the statement by addressing the main reason for his filing – he denies minority owners’ accusations that he improperly leaked information to the press, in violation of a court order issued on November 19.
Although written somewhat vaguely, perhaps due to the legal minefield that Snyder and the other owners are currently navigating, this Snyder document appears to be more to publicize his version of the $ 1.6 million deal and his claim that Schar extorted Snyder and less about proving Snyder is not leaking information to the media, violating a court order. There is definitely no leak in the statement; Snyder puts his name on the charges and, reading the entire document and considering the broader context, Snyder says very.
Snyder, Schar and minority owners Fred Smith and Robert Rothman will undoubtedly say a lot more when they answer questions from the presiding judge in two weeks about whether leaks occurred in violation of the court’s confidentiality order.