Over handling of child sexual abuse cases, Justice Dept. watchdog blasts FBI

The FBI is still not doing enough to protect children who have been sexually abused, according to an audit released on Thursday, three years after the Justice Department’s internal watchdog criticized the agency for its shortcomings in the case of convicted sexual abuser and former U.S. gymnastic team doctor Larry Nassar.

42 of the 327 cases examined in the new report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz were deemed so inadequate that auditors were prompted to get in touch with the FBI and request that they be given urgent attention.

The audit discovered that in one instance, a child was sexually molested for a full 15 months, and the same individual also abused another victim of child abuse, all while the FBI chose not to look into the matter. In another instance, a 2-year-old was abused for 21 months while the FBI sat on the file and did not pursue further investigation, according to an FBI evaluation that was independently documented by the Inspector General. Despite assurances from FBI Director Christopher Wray to Congress and the public that such instances would never occur again, these situations have similarities to the Nassar case.

The FBI’s obligation to notify state or local authorities of any allegations of child sexual abuse was not followed in 47% of the cases that the Justice Department monitor looked into. In 43 percent of the cases, the audit discovered that the FBI needed to do further investigation that should have been done in place of just lacking documentation in the file.

In the Nassar case, the study discovered that seventy more gymnasts claimed to have been molested by him during the course of a year of inaction, during which the FBI declined to look into complaints made by agents.

The FBI responded by noting that this was mostly an issue of improper file documentation, however the study refutes this by stating that 43% of the problematic cases involved additional FBI action in addition to paperwork.

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Budget cuts are one reason this task is particularly challenging, according to a senior FBI official, who also stated that they take any compliance violations extremely seriously. According to the person, there are a very tiny number of instances where the FBI’s inaction has caused harm to children, and in none of those circumstances was the FBI willing to tolerate that.

In a statement, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., attacked the FBI, stating that its “failures enabling Larry Nassar’s abuse of young victims continue to remain a stain on the Bureau.”

According to today’s report, the FBI’s new regulations, which were put in place to address these egregious failings, are essentially being disregarded, which is resulting in abuses akin to those observed in the Nassar investigation. The FBI’s continued mistreatment of victims is reprehensible,” Durbin remarked.