Last night, Roger Goodell named Giants owner John Mara and Steelers owner Art Rooney to oversee an investigation into the NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice incident, in which the Ravens player savagely beat his wife. This independent investigation is going to be conducted by Robert S. Mueller III, the former Director of the FBI. After Mueller comes to a final decision into how the NFL pursued (and later handled) the evidence, the final report will be made public. In a statement, the NFL claimed Commissioner Goodell pledged that Mueller will have the “full cooperation” of the NFL personnel, in addition to access to all of the NFL’s records.
From 2001-2013, Mueller served as Director of the FBI, and is currently a partner in the DC-based law firm WilmerHale. Recently, Goodell has gotten in trouble for only giving Rice a two-game suspension at first and, by his own account, “not seeing” the video of Rice punching his wife, Janay, until it was released by TMZ on Monday. After The Associated Press reported that a law enforcement official claimed to have sent the NFL the video back in April, the NFL chose to hire Mueller. So far, the NFL has denied any knowledge of anybody in the office receiving the video. This AP report challenges the commissioner’s claim that NFL executives didn’t see the elevator surveillance video until Monday, when it was made public on TMZ’s website. However, Mara and Jets owner Woody Johnson continued to voice his support for Goodell, even as the National Organization for Women and others were calling for Goodell’s resignation.
According to Mara, the Ravens continuously made requests to obtain the Ray Rice video, but were denied each time. Even after the AP story broke, Mara refused to retract his statement. Mara said that he was unhappy with the two-game suspension that Goodell gave Rice earlier in the year, but applauded his August 28th announcement that players accused of domestic violence would face a six-game ban, and that second-time offenders (such as Rice) would be banned from the NFL for life. While Johnson had previously not said much about the Rice scandal, he finally weighed in on Wednesday with a statement supporting Goodell, claiming that this was an “important issue”.
Maria Haymandou 