Sixteen of the 18 U.S. representatives from Pennsylvania sent a letter to the NCAA today, calling on the organization to release all documents that led to the formulation of the Penn State sanctions and consent decree. All U.S. representatives from Pennsylvania except for Tim Murphy (R-18) and the outgoing-Allyson Schwartz (D-13) signed the letter.

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-15) and Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-5) authored the letter after reviewing the troubling emails from the NCAA released in recent weeks as part of the Corman lawsuit.

“From examining these emails, it is clear the NCAA lacked credible basis to impose sanctions,” the letter reads. “Instead of enforcing the rules laid out in the bylaws, the NCAA sought to insert itself into a purely criminal matter that fell outside the scope of the NCAA’s jurisdiction.”

The referenced emails come from the numerous released discovery documents that have made national headlines. Most notably, an NCAA official said that the possibility of the death penalty for Penn State was  a “bluff” and, in questioning its own jurisdiction, that the NCAA would “bank on the fact that [Penn State] is so embarrassed they will do anything.”

“Given the tenuous nature of your egregious over-extension of power, you have at least had enough sense to remove some sanctions that should have never been imposed in the first place,” the letter continued. “We urge you to remove all remaining sanctions immediately.”

And then, the representatives got snarky.

“We look forward to your immediate response to this request and seeing all documents related to the events involved with your imposition of the Consent Decree,” the group wrote. “We hope you are not ‘banking’ on the fact that we will not pursue further action.”

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” Dent said to the Morning Call after the letter was sent. “They’re not going to be able to ‘bluff’ us into giving up if they’re ‘banking’ on our going away, the NCAA is sorely mistaken.”

The NCAA also lost another legal battle today, as a judge ruled that the organization would likely be forced to turn over even more emails as part of the discovery process which the NCAA has maintained are privileged.