LOS ANGELES — The LA Clippers condemned an NBA investigation that concluded the franchise circumvented the league’s salary-cap rules to funnel millions to Kawhi Leonard, and vowed to fight the severe punishment handed down by the league Wednesday afternoon.In a strongly worded letter addressed to NBA commissioner Adam Silver, attorney David Kelley of O’Melveny & Myers LLP claimed Clippers owner Steve Ballmer spent nearly $50 million to fund a “witch hunt” investigation that ultimately “stretched far beyond the bounds of what the league set out to investigate.”The letter became public hours after the league released its investigation findings and announced the Clippers had been stripped of five first-round picks and fined $30 million. In addition, Ballmer was suspended one year for “knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities.”“We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” a Clippers statement read. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure its fairness and accuracy.”In his letter to Silver, Kelley wrote that the league broke its promise to conduct an investigation guided by “due process” and “a fundamental sense of fairness.” He detailed that the Clippers produced more than 30,000 documents and provided more than 20 witnesses who sat for 30 interviews, with business partners and sponsors also providing documents, interviews and statements.The Kawhi Saga: What the NBA's investigation into the Clippers revealedMike Vorkunov and Jeshua Kidd“To say the investigation has been a distraction would be an understatement — Clippers employees have spent thousands of hours scouring document repositories, phones, messaging systems, central files, and accounting records, working with counsel, and sitting for interviews,” Kelley wrote. “This investigation has permanently strained relationships with key Clippers stakeholders.”