Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: An exchange of trinkets and a free cross-country trip for a promise of goodwill didn’t work out so hot for a Native American.
Well, at least it’s just one in particular this time.
Via longtime Washington writer Dave McKenna at Deadspin comes the very latest bit of red on the face of Dan Snyder’s football team, as a Utah tribe has moved to impeach its leader after she accepted gifts from the team, allegedly so she’d support their nickname efforts.
According to the filing, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Tribal Council has accused Gari Pikyavit Lafferty, their highest-ranking elected official, of accepting gifts from the team and the Original Americans Foundation (OAF), a non-profit formed by Snyder for his “outreach” efforts.
The Council accused Lafferty of accepting a Robert Griffin III-signed football, and allowing the team to pay for her trip to Washington to see the Sept. 25, 2014 game against the Giants without telling tribal leaders. Among the evidence presented was a photo with team president Bruce Allen.
The council wrote that the gifts “could be considered bribery,” and curiously enough, when she returned home, she supported a deal which allowed the OAF (they don’t even think their acronyms through particularly well) to buy the tribe “at least two vans.”
There are plenty of other damning nuggets in McKenna’s story, and it’s worth pointing out that he has been a thorn in Snyder’s side for years.
(Hey, interestingly enough, Snyder once tried to get McKenna fired. That’s weird, he’s never tried to get his critics promoted out of his hair or stifle a free and unencumbered discussion before.)
This time, however, a tribal official stands to lose her job too.
It’s going to be hard to blame this one on some gullible employees and a fake John Skipper, as the “winning off the field” continues unabated in the nation’s capital.