NFL’s Commanders Raise Questions About Financial Ties Between Liberal Activists and Oversight Committee Democrats
The Washington Commanders are boosting thoughts about the nexus in between the legislation and general public relations corporations symbolizing previous team workers and the Democrats on the Property Oversight Committee who launched an investigation final yr into the team’s office lifestyle.
Attorneys for the franchise instructed in a letter to the Residence Oversight Committee final 7 days that the regulation business Katz Banking companies Kumin LLP—best known for its representation of Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford—and the community relations agency SKDK may have a “financial stake in the final result of the investigation.”
It’s a fragile way of indicating this: Each Debra Katz and Lisa Banks are donors to customers of the Oversight Committee, which includes Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), whose investigation into the Washington Commanders is in transform giving their company with a whole lot of enterprise. Equally, Democrats on the committee have a cozy relationship with SKDK, which operates communications campaigns for Democratic politicians and left-wing organizations—and which is providing those services for the previous Commanders personnel.
It is not the only optics difficulty the investigation has run into: Oversight Committee member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D., Ill.) abruptly canceled a fundraiser in the spring that was set to be hosted by a well known Democratic relatives behind a marketing campaign to boycott the Commanders. The lobbyists and would-be hosts, Tom and Mike Manatos, touted Krishnamoorthi as their very best shot at “finding rid of Snyder,” a reference to Commanders owner Dan Snyder.
Past week’s letter from the team’s legal counsel is the most current salvo in one of Washington’s most weird congressional investigations. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D., N.Y.) released the probe last October, after the Commanders paid a $10 million good to the NFL following an investigation into office ailments at the franchise. Republicans have questioned why a congressional committee tasked with investigating squander, fraud, and abuse in the federal govt is investigating a non-public sports activities franchise.
In accordance to the team’s lawyers at the organization Holland & Knight, Home Democrats have been “uninterested” in acquiring proof they say would debunk the allegations produced by two Katz Financial institutions shoppers, former Commanders cheerleader Melanie Coburn and former crew vice president of revenue Jason Friedman. The lawyers supplied to share proof that contradicts their statements of a toxic place of work in an Oct. 5 letter but reported they have not listened to back again from the committee. They said Katz Financial institutions responded to the letter rather, elevating more questions about the relationship with the committee.
“Primarily based on the reality that the only response to our letter came from Katz Banks, and not from you, it appears that this personal legislation business is now acting as the de facto legal counsel for the Committee,” the lawyers wrote to Maloney, the co-chair of the Oversight Committee panel.
“The firm’s protracted involvement in this investigation raises sizeable queries about the resource of the firm’s funding and/or its monetary stake in the result of the investigation,” the lawyers claimed.
The Oversight Committee did not reply to a ask for for comment.
