Latest testimony paints Commanders owner Dan Snyder in embarrassing light

Though he wasn’t present, Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder was taken to the woodshed at Wednesday’s hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform that centered on the team’s long-standing workplace misconduct.

After an eight-month investigation, the committee released findings before Congress, claiming Snyder and his lawyers launched a “shadow investigation” that sought to discredit former employees accusing him of misconduct.

The 29-page memo alleges Snyder hired private investigators to intimidate witnesses and used an overseas lawsuit to obtain phone records and emails as a means to influence the NFL’s investigation into Washington’s workplace.

The night before the hearing, the Washington Post dropped a scathing report concerning Snyder, claiming the longtime owner paid a former employee $1.6 million to settle allegations of sexual assault. The woman accused Snyder of “asking her for sex, groping her and attempting to remove her clothes.”

Disturbing wouldn’t even begin to describe Snyder’s allegations and the latest testimony against the under-fire 57-year-old sheds light into how low he’ll stoop to prove a point. This story is as bizarre as it is embarrassing.

The source? Former Washington COO David Pauken.

Former Commanders COO David Pauken’s testimony somehow makes Dan Snyder look much worse than he already did.

According to Pauken, who served as the Commanders’ chief operating officer spanning 2001-06, Snyder had a team employee pour milk on the floor of the FedEx Field suite belonging to Washington Nationals owner Mark Lerner. Snyder’s goal? Have the milk go sour by the time Lerner and his family attended a game.

Per Pauken’s testimony, Snyder executed this petulant maneuver because he was upset about a business deal he made with Lerner.

"“We completed a business deal with the Lerners that, in Dan’s view, was way too much money to pay, but we needed the parking,” Pauken’s testimony read. “Dan wanted to see Mark Lerner’s suite, and we go up there to his suite. This was on a non-gameday. Dan asked me to pour milk on the carpet under the seating in Mark Lerner’s suite so that the suite would smell like sour milk when the Lerner family came in on gameday. And he had [redacted] do that on another occurrence. So if you’re asking me things I regret doing, that would fall under that category. I owe Mark Lerner an apology, but I did it because Dan told me to do it.”"

Again, how is Snyder allowed to oversee an NFL organization?

Later in the same testimony, however, Pauken levied more damning allegations against Washington’s owner, saying Snyder made assumptions about his sexuality because he didn’t want to sexualize the team’s cheerleaders.

The former COO testified Snyder would say of him, “Yeah, he has to be gay. As ugly as these cheerleaders are. Pauken, are you gay? You must be gay. How could you have a cheerleading squad that looks like this?”

Pauken’s testimony included accusing Snyder of wrongly punishing female employees while letting male employees off the hook. Per the memo, Snyder fired two cheerleaders for having a consensual relationship with a player, who walked away unscathed. Additionally, Snyder refused to discipline a member of the coaching staff after he learned the staff member groped a woman on the public relations team.

Rather than discipline the coach for sexual harassment, Snyder ordered the female employee to keep her distance from the coach.

At the end of the hearing, Committee chair Carolyn Maroney revealed her intentions to issue a subpoena for Snyder to testify next week. With nowhere left to hide, Snyder will have plenty of questions to answer.