Coast Guard leaders made list of reasons not to tell Congress about explosive sexual assault investigation, new records show
By Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken, CNN
Published 10:58 AM EST, Fri February 16, 2024
Records turned over to Congress this month reveal how top officials at the US Coast Guard engaged in a calculated plan to conceal the damning findings of an investigation into decades of sexual assault cases at the agency’s academy, going so far as to create a list of the pros and cons of being transparent.
Coast Guard officials only told Congress about the explosive probe last year after CNN started making inquiries. Dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, the multi-year internal investigation found that rapes and other sexual abuse at the prestigious Coast Guard Academy had been ignored and often covered up by high-ranking officials.
But telling Congress and the public about this scandal, leaders worried, could “risk the initiation of comprehensive Congressional investigations, hearings, and media interest,” according to 2018 internal records supplied to the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in February.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/16/politics/coast-guard-sexual-assault-senate-records-invs/index.html
