FBI’s shameful role extends victims’ trauma
If only Larry Nassar had a suspicious-looking garage door pull back in 2015.
The FBI might have seriously addressed the child sexual assault allegations levied against Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics team doctor, by those in his care.
Unfortunately, the FBI had other concerns at the time. It never bothered to seriously investigate the accusations brought forward by Olympian and Needham native Aly Raisman, and her fellow gymnasts, caught in the pedophilic triad of Nassar, USA Gymnastics and United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.
Olympians Simone Biles, Maggie Nichols, McKayla Maroney and Raisman forced their plight into the national spotlight by testifying on Wednesday in front of a Senate committee investigating how the Feds screwed up this situation.
They scored perfect 10s. Theirs was a profile in courage.
“A survivor’s healing is affected by the handling of their abuse, and it disgusts me that we are still fighting for the most basic answers and accountability over 6 years later,” Raisman, 27, said. “I felt pressured by the FBI to consent to Nassar’s plea deal,” she said. “The agent diminished the significance of my abuse and made me feel my criminal case wasn’t worth pursuing.”
She said the FBI sat on her allegations for 14 months despite repeated requests to be interviewed.
The head of the FBI’s Indianapolis bureau sought a job with the USOPC while assigned to the Nassar case. He retired in 2018. Another agent was fired this summer after a Justice Department probe found multiple flaws in how the FBI bungled the inquiry.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, as useful and effective as Jarrett Stidham, took the heat for the federal government’s failure at the hearing. But he was not in charge when the FBI actively pushed to subvert this case.
Who was in charge of the FBI when it ran interference for Nassar? None other than Jim Comey. He was fired by President Trump in 2017 during the Russia Collusion investigation. Comey wrote a book in 2018 called, laughingly, “A Higher Loyalty.” Comey was so good at his job, he had no idea what was happening on his watch. Comey remains silent here.
Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe said this represents the “worst” of the Bureau. He should know. McCabe was fired in 2018 after improperly leaking information to the Wall Street Journal and lying under oath about it three times.
Attorney General Merrick Garland was a no-show last week, as was Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. They have more pressing business since the Bill of Rights remains in effect across several states.
This is the same FBI that immediately dispatched more than a dozen agents to Talladega Superspeedway in 2020 after a crew member reported a looped rope in a garage used by driver Bubba Wallace, who is Black.
No racing team used the stall for months and it was randomly assigned to Wallace. A cursory look at the photo featuring said the infamous garage pull revealed this was a case of “Fake Noose.” Still, agents descended upon that NASCAR garage area as if it was a rally of unvaccinated Ron DeSantis supporters.
USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee share culpability. Each organization enabled this criminal activity. This could have been done for a myriad of reasons from public image, corporate sponsorship dollars to preserving sky-high TV ratings during the Games.
Raisman said USA Gymnastics “quietly allowed Nassar to slip out the side door,” which let him continue his “work” Michigan State University and elsewhere. “Nassar found more than 100 new victims to molest. It was like serving innocent children up to a pedophile on a silver platter,” she said.
Her allegations of abuse were buried by both governing organizations and the Feds, “who failed to follow their most basic duties,” Raisman added. “The FBI and others within both USAG and USOPC knew that Nassar molested children, and did nothing to restrict his access.”
Remember, these allegations were first brought to the FBI’s attention before the 2016 Olympics. Imagine the historic irony of Matt Lauer interviewing the gymnasts five years ago about a breaking sexual abuse scandal ahead of the Rio Games?
Raisman lives in the Seaport District. It was simply South Boston for a couple of hundred years before real estate agents needed to justify its astronomic property values and rents.
Being victimized by the FBI’s criminal malfeasance was a rite of passage for many who lived in Southie in the late 20th Century.
Raisman sadly carries on that tradition, along with a lifetime of emotional trauma for no additional cost.
The FBI – mostly through disgraced agent John Connolly – enabled Whitey Bulger to unleash a pandemic of organized crime and murder for decades in South Boston. When he wasn’t killing people or shaking them down, Whitey flooded the neighborhood with cocaine and marijuana (when it was illegal), through his own rackets or dealers whom he “protected” for the right price.
Bulger met his demise at a West Virginia prison in 2018. Meanwhile, Connolly is a free man. He got a compassionate medical release from a Florida judge in February to “finish the rest of his life in the sunshine,” despite a 40-year second-degree murder conviction in 2008. Justice remains denied to many of their victims and families.
Nassar will be in prison from anywhere between 40 and 175 years. We hope. His prosecution occurred due to the work of police in Michigan.
That, unfortunately, doesn’t mean justice for the more than 250 women and girls he sexually assaulted.
Raisman relives her worst nightmares whenever pressing for accountability.
“Experiencing this type of abuse is not something one just suffers in the moment,” Raisman said. “It carries on with them sometimes for the rest of their lives. Being here today is taking everything I have. I don’t think you realize how much it affects us, how much the PTSD, how much the trauma impacts us.”
Justice for these women could include imprisonment for everyone at the FBI, USA Gymnastics and the USPOC who enabled Nassar, or covered up his behavior. It could mean – someday – putting Raisman, Maroney or Biles in charge of the USA Gymnastics program, if not the entire US Olympic program, if only to ensure this never happens again.
A total of $500 million from a settlement with Michigan State University has been set aside to pay Nassar’s victims. That’s a good start.
But there is so much more to be done.