Update: Commanders (formerly, the Washington Football Team) owner Dan Snyder has hired a private firm to investigate new allegations of sexual harrassment made by former team cheerleader Tiffani Johnston.

Journalist Adam Shefter first reported the news.

Pallas Global Group LLC will lead the investigation into allegations made by Johnston, who said during a Congressional roundtable last week that Snyder sexually harassed her during a work dinner, and described years of harassment by team executives. The team confirmed the announcement Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the Commanders did not immediately return DCist/WAMU’s request for comment, but in a statement shared with multiple news outlets, the franchise said it is “committed to a thorough and independent investigation of Ms. Johnston’s allegation, and pledges full cooperation with the investigation.” Once complete, the investigative report will be released to the public, according to the team.

Original:

Former employees of  The Washington Football Team — now known as The Commanders — brought forward new allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct involving team owner Daniel Snyder during a Congressional roundtable on Thursday.

Six former employees of the team spoke with members of Congress about the team’s culture under Snyder. Tiffani Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing manager for the team, said that Snyder sexually harassed her at a work dinner, placed his hand on her thigh under the table and later tried to “aggressively” push her toward his limo and asked her to ride with him to her car.

“The only reason Dan Snyder removed his hand from my back … was because his attorney intervened and said ‘Dan, Dan, this is a bad idea. A very bad idea, Dan,’” said Johnston.

Johnston told members of Congress that she removed herself from Snyder while his attorney distracted him. The next day, Johnston said, a senior coworker told her not to repeat the story of what she had experienced.

“There was no one to go to about Dan Snyder’s advance, no path to report the incident, so I learned to move on,” said Johnston.

Johnston also said that while she was a cheerleader with the team, she learned that Snyder had “demanded” an unedited, enlarged lingerie calendar photo of her be sent to his office.

Johnston said her experiences at the team and the trauma of that workplace led her to develop an “emotional wall.”

Melanie Coburn, who formerly worked in marketing and as a cheerleader, said “women were objects,” “disposable,” and “exploited, over and over,” at the team. Coburn said that at a work trip to Colorado, prostitutes were invited to Snyder’s house and one of her colleagues was “hazed to drink” despite being in recovery.

A spokesperson for the football team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statements made Thursday by former employees. In a statement provided to multiple news outlets, Snyder said the claims that involved him directly were “outright lies,” but that he “fully supports” people who have been victimized and shared their experiences.

“While past conduct at the Team was unacceptable, the allegations leveled against me personally in today’s roundtable — many of which are well over 13 years old — are outright lies,” wrote Snyder. “I unequivocally deny having participated in any such conduct, at any time and with respect to any person.”

Former employees at the roundtable also described a pervasive climate of sexual harassment and sexism at the team.

Rachel Engleson, a former employee in marketing and client relations who said she grew up in Maryland rooting for the team, said that the job – her first full-time job out of college – came with unrelenting sexual harassment.

“I worked at the Washington Football Team for eight years, and I can’t recall a time that I didn’t experience or fear sexual harassment,” said Engleson. “It was just a pervasive part of the culture and an unavoidable rite of passage being a woman who worked there.”

Brad Baker, a former video production manager who said he grew up as a “diehard fan” of the team, said that once he started working for the football team, he “quickly learned” that “male executives regularly harassed, demeaned, and bullied women in the workplace — and they got away with it for decades.”

Baker said that Snyder requested that the video department edit together lewd footage of cheerleaders — a story he shared with the Washington Post, which published an extensive investigation into the team culture in 2020.

In response to the Post investigation, the team hired attorney Beth Wilkinson to look into the team’s workplace culture. The NFL later took over the investigation. The league also fined the team $10 million, and Tanya Snyder took over day-to-day operations of the team from her husband, Dan Snyder.

But despite repeated calls from former employees — and members of Congress — the NFL has not publicly released the findings of Wilkinson’s investigation, which included interviews with more than 150 people and a review of 650,000 internal emails.

“I mean, they were able to release a report that was 243 pages long — 243 pages long — on the PSIs of footballs, the pounds per square inch of footballs,” said Baker, referring to the lengthy NFL report produced as part of the scandal known as “deflategate.” “Surely, women being sexually harassed and lewd outtakes of videos of female employees created without their consent could muster up some kind of written report, right?”

Emily Applegate, a former employee of the team who worked in marketing, said in her statement at the roundtable that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had, through his handling of the WFT investigation, “proven once again that he is unequipped to handle important issues within the NFL. He has mishandled social justice issues, domestic violence issues, and now sexual harassment issues.”

Democratic leadership of the committee has called on the NFL and the Washington Football Team to release the full investigation.

“Just yesterday, Mr. Snyder sought to rebrand his team as the Commanders,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in her opening statement, referring to the fact that the team announced its new name yesterday after going by a racial slur for Native Americans for 87 years. “With due respect, it’s going to take more than a name change to fix that broken culture.”

This post has been updated to include Dan Snyder’s hiring of a private firm to investigate sexual harrassment allegations.