Haley writes with righteous indignation about the FBI’s failures to prevent further sexual abuse by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar:
The FBI’s Indianapolis field office met with USA Gymnastics officials, including president Steve Penny, in July 2015 to address allegations that Nassar sexually abused multiple gymnasts. After consulting with attorneys and special agents, the Indianapolis office decided to transfer the case to the Western District of Michigan, where there would likely be federal jurisdiction. That transfer never happened, even though W. Jay Abbott, the special agent in charge, told Penny and FBI officials that it did.
Weeks after not transferring the report, Abbott met Penny at a bar to discuss a job opportunity. From there, the case was stagnant for eight months until USA Gymnastics officials alerted the FBI’s Los Angeles field office of Nassar’s misdoings. When contacted by the Los Angeles office, the FBI’s Indianapolis field office said it had no record of the initial report.
This reminded me of a 2018 article from Kevin Williamson in the aftermath of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting. Kevin wrote:
As was reported on Friday, the FBI had been alerted that a particular pasty-faced virgin down in Florida was probably going to shoot up his old school. He had put up social-media posts to that effect, cleverly shielding his identity from the steely-eyed G-men by signing his legal name to those public threats. The epigones of J. Edgar Hoover may not be Sherlock Holmes, but presumably they can read, and some public-minded citizen took some screen shots and sent them to the FBI.
The FBI of course did what the relevant authorities did in the case of Omar Mateen, the case of Nidal Hasan, the case of Adam Lanza: nothing.
We could replace these guys with trained monkeys, if we could train monkeys to be self-important.
(That last sentence is perfect and is why I remembered the article.)
It would be easier for the FBI to defend itself from accusations of incompetence if it didn’t have a record of being incompetent.