Report alleges Coast Guard leaders kept sexual assault investigation secret
HARTFORD, Conn.– Former masterpiece Coast Guard officials hid a years-long investigation into sexual abuse and harassment at the agency’s academy of both Congress and the public after leaders debated the ramifications of a possible disclosure, according to a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report released Friday.
Coast Guard officials also took steps to remove references to the investigation, called Operation Fouled Anchor, from documents submitted to Congress, according to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report. The report followed similar findings released last week by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
“Today’s report confirms and provides additional strong evidence that the cover-up of sexual assaults in the Coast Guard was intentional, targeted and long-standing,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the committee, said Friday. “The public deserves an explanation. This also applies to the survivors.”
A Coast Guard spokesperson released a statement Friday evening.
“The Coast Guard is acutely aware of and is responding aggressively to the unacceptable activities underlying the report – namely sexual assault and sexual harassment,” the statement said. “The Coast Guard is working proactively to prevent and reduce these devastating crimes, secure justice for survivors, and provide the care and support victims need and deserve.”
Messages to officials at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, were not immediately returned Friday. The Coast Guard previously apologized for the way it handled sexual misconduct complaints and said it has made numerous improvements.
Operation Fouled Anchor ran from 2014 to 2019. The investigation examined more than 100 allegations of sexual assault at the academy, made between the early 1990s and 2006, and how they were handled. However, Coast Guard officials did not fully disclose its existence to Congress or the public until last year. The existence of the research was first reported by CNN.
The investigation found that there had been dozens of incidents of sexual assault and harassment involving academy cadets mistreated by the schoolincluding preventing some perpetrators from being prosecuted.
When the investigation became public, there were calls for reform and accountability for perpetrators and those who protected them. They also resulted in multiple government investigations and formal complaints from more than twenty former cadets who said they had been sexually assaulted.
Friday’s subcommittee report alleged that Admiral Karl Schultz, then commander of the Coast Guard, made the decision in 2018 not to make Operation Foul Anchor public because the investigation had not yet been completed.
That decision came after then-vice commander, Admiral Charles Ray, who, like Schultz, has now retired, discussed the “pros and cons of going outside.”
The subcommittee said a handwritten note from Ray said the benefits of making the investigation public include “tearing off the Band-Aid,” being proactive and eliminating “cultural guilt.” The downsides, Ray wrote, according to the congressional panel, include endless investigations and revictimization of people. Ray also wrote that the “problem is a thing of the past,” the subcommittee said.
Other Coast Guard officials presented three scenarios for dealing with Operation Fouled Anchor, with a recommendation that they be discussed only if Congress requests it, the subcommittee said.
The officials recommended against fully notifying Congress, writing that “any positive notice from Congress or external communications, especially if informed under a special investigation name with a colorful title, vice separate investigations, risks extensive investigations, hearings and media interest are initiated by Congress. the subcommittee said.
Phone and text messages left with an advertisement for Schultz were not immediately returned Friday. Contact information for Ray could not immediately be found.
Schultz said CNN in an interview last week that he withheld the investigation from Congress because he feared elected officials would not protect the victims’ privacy. He also denied allegations of a cover-up and said he believed there was no legal obligation to provide the investigation report to Congress.
Schultz and Ray became the Coast Guard’s top leaders in 2018. The previous leaders told the subcommittee that they planned to announce Operation Foul Anchor to Congress and the public.
Friday’s report also said the Coast Guard has prepared at least 17 versions of a final report for Operation Foul Anchor. The longest, at 26 pages, detailed attacks on the academy. The final version consisted of six pages and omitted much of the information from previous drafts, the subcommittee said.
The subcommittee’s report also accuses Coast Guard officials of repeatedly failing to comply with the panel’s investigation, including by failing to produce documents, “aggressively” redacting documents and falsely claiming that some documents were privileged.
The Coast Guard responded that it has made extensive efforts to provide requested documents to Congress, including examining more than 1.8 million pages of emails, and that it has complied “as fully as possible” with congressional requests for information.
The Senate subcommittee said the investigation is continuing.
“In deciding to conceal Operation Fouled Anchor from Congress and the public, the Coast Guard has failed itself and its members, who have survived sexual abuse and harassment while in service,” the subcommittee report said .