A leading Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is pressing the FBI over the agency’s refusal to implement a series of reforms in probing child sex crimes.
On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray outlining the bureau’s failure to comply with proposed changes in protocol prompted by the Justice Department’s inspector general. The initial investigation from the agency watchdog was provoked by a report from the DOJ three years ago revealing the FBI did nothing to stop USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar from sexually assaulting hundreds of women in his supposed care.
“In 2021, the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a detailed review of FBI misconduct during the Nassar investigation,” Grassley wrote Monday. “The FBI accepted all of the review’s findings and promised significant reforms.”
A later audit by the DOJ inspector general released last month, however, “revealed the FBI not only failed to implement a host of promised changes responsive to the OIG Nassar Review, but also overstated its reforms to Congress of the OIG on at least three occasions.”
“Ultimately, the FBI promised swift action in 83% of the 42 cases the OIG flagged in the 2024 Audit as requiring an immediate response, and again failed to deliver,” Grassley wrote. “The 2024 Audit is littered with examples of no action and delayed action,” the senator added, (emphasis his).
More than 100 of Nassar’s victims were awarded a $138.7 million dollar settlement from the FBI because of the government’s failure to properly handle allegations of misconduct made in 2015 and 2016. In 2018, Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for charges of child pornography, along with an additional 40 to 175 years for child sex abuse.
The FBI’s turning a blind eye to Nassar’s sexual exploits follows an endless list of agency failures as the federal government’s premier law enforcement unit redirects resources to crack down on political dissidents. While Nassar’s child abuse went uninvestigated, the FBI was weaponized to prosecute former President Donald Trump as a covert Russian operative. The Department of Justice would then go on to investigate traditional Catholics as domestic terrorists, prosecute online meme creators, fine peaceful protestors, jail pro-life demonstrators, and raid Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Despite the FBI’s decades of misconduct, lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill recently voted to award the bureau $200 million for a new headquarters. The General Services Administration (GSA) selected a 61-acre plot in Maryland as the destination for the new site.
Read Sen. Grassley’s full letter to the FBI here.
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