Senate Judiciary to grill FBI officials after ‘damning’ audit of child sexual abuse investigations

WASHINGTON (CN) — Lawmakers plan to put the Federal Bureau of Investigation back under the microscope this fall after an audit published Thursday by the agency’s independent watchdog found it hasn’t patched up its enforcement of sex crimes against children.

The report by FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz came three years after the agency’s internal investigator found that it had failed to act on allegations of sexual abuse against the former Olympic gymnastics physician Larry Nassar.

It was also partly a response to bipartisan oversight from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray on the Nassar case in 2021 and demanded that the agency review its practices for responding to such reports.

The audit published Thursday reviewed the FBI’s “corrective measures” since the Nassar case. But while Horowitz acknowledged that the agency had updated its policies, training and other systems to mitigate its previous failures, the inspector general’s review revealed dozens of instances in which FBI staff continued to sit on allegations of child sexual abuse or failed to comply with reporting requirements.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and a leading voice in congressional oversight of the Nassar case, said in a statement that the inspector general’s “damning” report shows that steps taken by the FBI to improve its response to allegations of child sexual abuse are “effectively being ignored.”

The FBI audit reviewed 327 “hands-on” investigations into child sex offenses between 2021 and 2023. From that sample, the inspector general identified 42 cases, or around 13%, which lacked recent investigative activity, were not appropriately reported or otherwise featured “substantial non-compliance” with agency policy.

In at least one instance, the report said, the FBI’s failure to properly refer a suspect to local authorities allowed the subject to abuse another child before the inspector general’s office stepped in.

Horowitz offered nearly a dozen recommendations to further address the FBI’s missteps, including a system to monitor whether agency employees are complying with mandatory reporting guidelines and updated policies for documenting and responding to new allegations — especially those considered time-sensitive.

The FBI should implement controls to ensure incidents with an “imminent or ongoing threat” of sexual or physical abuse be handled within 24 hours, as currently mandated by agency policy, Horowitz said.

In the wake of the report, lawmakers said they were once again ready to step in.

“The FBI must answer for the inspector general’s grave findings,” Durbin said. “In 2021, Director Wray testified to the Committee that what happened with Nassar was ‘inexcusable … and we’re doing everything in our power to make sure it never happens again.’ But it’s still happening.”

The Judiciary Committee chair announced that his panel would soon hold a follow-up hearing on the FBI’s “mishandling” of child sexual abuse. A spokesperson for the committee told Courthouse News that lawmakers would invite “senior FBI officials” to testify.

Durbin did not say exactly when the hearing would take place, writing only that it would be held later this year. “In the meantime, I urge prompt adoption of all the inspector general’s recommendations,” he added.

The Justice Department in April agreed to a roughly $139 million settlement over more than 130 separate claims that the FBI failed to properly investigate allegations of sexual abuse against Nassar, which came from as many as 150 different women. Some say they were as young as 13 when first assaulted by the former gymnastics physician.

The settlement followed Horowitz’s 2021 report, which found that the FBI’s Indianapolis field office waited too long to act on allegations of sexual abuse against Nassar starting in 2015. When it did step in, the inspector general found, the field office failed to notify state or local authorities or take other steps to address the threat posed by Nassar.

Nassar, 61, is serving effectively a life sentence in federal prison. He was convicted in 2017 on three consecutive 20-year terms.

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