Dan Snyder's lawyer, Patty Glaser, joined "The Sports Junkies" on 106.7 The Fan Tuesday morning to explain why her client elected to re-file a lawsuit against the Washington City Paper for a November cover story by Dave McKenna. Glaser said McKenna's claim that Snyder was caught forging names was untrue because Snyder Communications settled without admitting to it, and added that there were two other claims (he cut down trees and h was kicked off the Six Flags Board of Directors) that are a part of the lawsuit. She also said that the case was moved to D.C. in part to add McKenna's name to the lawsuit.
Here are a transcript of her comments. You can listen to the interview here.
On why the lawsuit is being filed
"I think he wants and expects truth, and I think you want truth. Most journalists expect and want truth. Most journalists are extremely professional and take seriously this notion of freedom of the press. But freedom of the press comes with responsibility, checking facts and not acting (in our view) recklessly. Public figures have protection too. You need to be careful, you need not to be reckless. You can't publish things that are knowingly or easily checked to be false. So we want a retraction and an apology."
On the forging claim
"No I won't admit it. I would like to point out to you that there were 77 offices in 17 countries and more than 12,000 employees, and there's not even an allegation that Mr. Snyder had anything to do with it, had any knowledge of it, was even aware this was going on."
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"There's no acknowledgment of any wrongdoing, and that occurs after Mr. Snyder sold the company. So I want to be very clear of that."
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"There has never been been a suggestion, not even remotely, that 'Dan Snyder got caught forging names as a telemarketer.' That's just pure, unadulterated nonsense. That's not poetic license. That's just not true."
On what explains the $3.1 million settlement
"There was never a finding that Snyder Communications got caught forging telemarketers. If the facts come out, and they hopefully will, the facts are that it was an independent contracter. And even the independent contractor, to my knowledge, never acknowledged any wrongdoing ever. But certainly Dan Snyder did not get caught forging names with Snyder Communications. It just isn't true."
"Eventually, we agreed to resolve the differences without admitting anything. But it had nothing to do with Dan Snyder as Dan Snyder."
On why they are re-filing in D.C.
"The other side actually presented us evidence on who was responsible for what we felt are misdeeds. They didn't acknowledge the misdeeds. They just pointed out who was responsible. We dropped one of the defendants, added Mr. McKenna because we will be refilling in Washington D.C."
On why they are going through with the lawsuit despite negative PR
"We're in a terrible period -- terrible and good -- of something called the Internet, where stories get repeated and repeated and repeated ... "If I accused you of plagiarizing a story on your radio show, you would be incensed. And if I never called out and found out if it was the truth or not, you would be crazed by that. And rightfully so. I don't have a right to make an accusation against you like that unless I checked my facts. That's not OK."
On her reading of the figure-of-speech statement that McKenna went "Agent Orange" on the trees
"We don't view it that way and we don't think others view it that way."