Simone Biles, the most lauded gymnast in history, did not want to be in Congress Wednesday testifying before a Senate committee on FBI mismanagement in one of the most serious cases of sexual abuse in U.S. history. Sitting at the witness table next to three of her former U.S. national teammates, Biles said she couldn’t imagine being less comfortable. But she decided to publicly address lawmakers for herself, as a survivor of these abuses, but also for other athletes, especially young ones, whom she feels compelled to protect.
Biles, 24, began to cry when she explained that she does not want any other young woman to suffer what she suffered at the hands of a pedophile. She and hundreds of other girls and women were abused by Larry Nassar, the former national team doctor. Now Nassar is serving what amounts to life imprisonment for multiple sex crimes. “To be clear: I blame Larry Nassar, but I also blame an entire system that allowed and perpetrated his abuses,” Biles said.
McKayla Maroney also testified describing in appalling detail how the FBI mistreated her when she told officers Nassar abused her over and over again, even before she won the Olympic gold medal. Maroney had once told them that he was with Nassar in Tokyo for a competition and he abused her. He thought she would “die”: “There was no way he would let me go.” When he finished explaining the abuses to the FBI, trauma he had not yet confessed to his mother, officers replied, “Is that all?” Maroney was just a teenager, and she was struck by her lack of empathy. “Not only did the FBI not report my abuse, but when they finally documented my case report, 17 months later, they made totally false claims about what I said,” Maroney said. “They chose to lie about what I said and protect a serial pedophile instead of protecting not just me, but countless people.”
After the gymnasts spoke, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified about the agency’s handling of the Nassar sexual abuse case, the first public signal about the inability to properly investigate the case of sexual abuse that shook the sports world. Wray, who became director of the agency in 2017, apologized to the victims and said he felt “heartbroken and furious” when he learned that the FBI had made so many mistakes in the case before he was arrested. take over the agency. “We need to remember the pain we caused when our people didn’t do their job,” he said referring to the suffering of the victims. He added that the FBI will make changes to make sure there is no mismanagement again.
The hearing took place days after the FBI fired one of the agents who initially worked on the case investigating Nassar, the former gymnastics team’s ex-doctor who was eventually convicted of abusing dozens of gymnasts, including Olympic athletes, under the guise of physical exams. And it comes two months after the Justice Department inspector general released a report in which he harshly criticized the FBI for making crucial mistakes in the investigation. These mistakes allowed Nassar to continue treating patients for eight months at Michigan State University, where he practiced, and in and around Lansing, Michigan, including a local gym and institute. Nassar, who is serving a life sentence for sexual harassment, abused more than 70 girls and women while the FBI was not acting, according to the inspector general’s report.
“It’s amazing when the failures come from the police themselves, but that’s exactly what happened in the Nassar case.”
Hundreds of girls and women who were abused by Nassar have been waiting to hear from the FBI what the mistakes of the case have been. Biles, the Olympic gold medalist, demanded to know “who knew what, and when” about Nassar. The gymnast won a silver and a bronze medal at the Tokyo Games after leaving the team competition due to a mental health problem. Biles testified along with his former teammates McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols, that she is known as Athlete A in the Nassar case because she was the first elite gymnast to report abuse in the state gymnastics. Units. That was in July 2015. The Lansing FBI office opened an official investigation into Nassar in October 2016.
To open the hearing, Illinois Democrat Sen. Richard J. Durbin scolded the FBI for “abandonment of duty,” “systematic failure of the organization” and “serious errors” in the case, and went to say that lawmakers would like to know from the FBI how and why these mistakes occurred and why it was decided not to file charges against officers who made such serious mistakes in the case. “It’s amazing when the failures come from the police themselves, but that’s exactly what happened in the Nassar case,” Durbin said.
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