In recent days, former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe and his lawyer, Clayton Halunen, agitated the ongoing controversy with the team by claiming that the Vikings had reneged on a promise to make public the report of the investigation into Kluwe’s allegations of homophobic comments and retaliatory discharge for his gay-rights activism.
On July 15, Kluwe called a press conference at which he alleged that the Vikings broke their promise to release the report. The Vikings later issued a statement contending that no such promise ever was made.
The Vikings apparently were accurate, because only one week earlier Kluwe’s lawyer wrote in an email to one of the lawyers investigating the situation that, indeed, no such promise was ever made. Clayton Halunen also explained to Christopher Madel in the email, a copy of which PFT and other media outlets have obtained, that the report should never be made public.
“I’ve [p]ut a lot of thought into the Vikings making the investigation report public and the more I think about it I believe it would be a mistake for a number of reasons,” Halunen wrote. “First, the Vikings have never made any commitment to make any investigation report public. The only commitment made was that my client’s allegations would be thoroughly investigated. They have been. Second, there is no good reason to make [t]he details public. They will only provide fodder for the media and pundits to attack the methodology, integrity or content to serve their own agenda. Finally, why should confidences shared by witnesses during the course of the investigation that may be very personal in nature be shared publicly? It’s seems as though public disclosure would more likely open a Pandora’s box than provide public confidence in the investigation.”
Pandora’s box definitely has been opened on this one. But a persuasive case could be made that Kluwe opened the box when he first decided to take his claims public in lieu of attempting to handle the situation privately -- especially if his lawyer’s ultimate conclusion is that the outcome of the investigation should be kept secret.