Coast Guard leaders kept sexual assault investigation secret: Report

HARTFORD, Conn. — Former top Coast Guard officials hid a yearslong investigation into sexual assault and harassment at the service’s academy from both Congress and the public after leaders debated the fallout from a potential disclosure, according to a U.S. Senate committee report released Friday.

Coast Guard officials also took steps to remove references to the investigation, named Operation Fouled Anchor, from records submitted to Congress, according to the report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The report followed similar findings released last week by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

“Today’s report confirms and provides additional powerful evidence that the cover-up of sexual assault in the Coast Guard was deliberate and purposeful and longstanding,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the committee, said Friday. “The public deserves an explanation. So do the survivors.”

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A Coast Guard spokesperson released a statement Friday evening.

“The Coast Guard is keenly aware of and is aggressively responding to the unacceptable activities underpinning 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 how it handled sexual misconduct complaints and said it has made numerous improvements.

Operation Fouled Anchor ran from 2014 to 2019. The investigation reviewed more than 100 allegations of sexual assault at the academy made from the early 1990s to 2006 and how they were handled. Coast Guard officials, however, did not fully disclose its existence to Congress or the public until last year. The existence of the investigation was first reported by CNN.

The investigation found that dozens of sexual assault and harassment cases involving academy cadets had been mishandled by the school, including the prevention of some perpetrators from being prosecuted.

When the investigation did become public, it sparked calls for reform and accountability for offenders and those who protected them. They also resulted in multiple government investigations and formal complaints by more than 20 former cadets who said they were sexually assaulted.

Friday’s subcommittee report alleged that in 2018, Adm. Karl Schultz, the Coast Guard commandant at the time, made the decision to not publicly disclose Operation Foul Anchor, on the grounds that the investigation was not yet complete.

That decision came after the vice commandant at the time, Adm. Charles Ray, who like Schultz has since retired, discussed the “pros and cons of going external.”

The subcommittee said a handwritten note by Ray said the pros of disclosing the investigation publicly included “rip the band-aid off,” being proactive and purging “cultural guilt.” The cons, Ray wrote, according to the congressional panel, included investigations without end and revictimizing people. Ray also wrote the “problem is one of the past,” according to the subcommittee.

Other Coast Guard officials presented three scenarios for how to handle Operation Fouled Anchor, with a recommendation to only discuss it if asked by Congress, the subcommittee said.

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The officials recommended against fully notifying Congress, writing that “any affirmative Congressional or external communication, especially if briefed under a singular investigatory moniker with a colorful title, vice separate investigations, will risk the initiation of comprehensive Congressional investigations, hearings, and media interest,” according to the subcommittee.

Phone and text messages left at a listing for Schultz were not immediately returned Friday. Contact information for Ray could not immediately be found.

Schultz told CNN in an interview last week that he withheld the investigation from Congress because he was concerned elected officials would not protect victims’ privacy. He also denied allegations of a coverup and said he believed there was no legal obligation to give the investigation report to Congress.

Schultz and Ray became the top leaders of the Coast Guard in 2018. The previous leaders told the subcommittee that they had intended to disclose Operation Foul Anchor to Congress and the public.

Friday’s report also said the Coast Guard drafted at least 17 versions of a final report for Operation Foul Anchor. The longest, at 26 pages, detailed assaults at the academy. The final version was six pages and omitted much of the information in earlier drafts, the subcommittee said.

The subcommittee’s report also accused Coast Guard officials of repeatedly failing to comply with the panel’s investigation including by failing to produce documents, “aggressively” redacting documents and erroneously claiming some documents were privileged.

The Coast Guard responded that it has undergone an extensive effort to provide requested documents to Congress, including examining more than 1.8 million pages of emails, and has complied with congressional requests for information “to the fullest extent.”

The Senate subcommittee said its investigation is continuing.

“With the decision to keep Operation Fouled Anchor from Congress and the public, the Coast Guard failed itself and its members who survived sexual assault and sexual harassment during their time in the service,” the subcommittee’s report said.