The Justice Department inspector general said Thursday that the FBI is still not adequately handling allegations of child sex abuse, years after the Larry Nassar scandal led to a series of new rules on such investigations, the Washington Post reports. “The FBI needs to improve compliance” with its own policies in multiple areas, including mandatory reporting to other agencies, victim services, sharing tips between FBI field offices and responding to allegations of active child sexual abuse the audit report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz found. The report shows the FBI “is simply not doing its job when it comes to protecting our children from the monsters among us who stalk them,” said attorney John Manly, who represents many of Nassar’s victims. “Despite years of promises and numerous Congressional hearings it’s now clear that the Larry Nassar scandal could happen again today,” Manly said.
In one particularly egregious example of a case falling through the cracks, the FBI failed to act aggressively on a tip that a registered sex offender was committing sexual abuse, the report said. In that case, the inspector general found no evidence of a referral to local authorities or the suspect’s probation officer. After the inspector general inquired about the status of the case, FBI agents became more involved. That incident is the most similar to the problems identified three years ago in the inspector general’s report into the FBI’s mishandling of allegations against Nassar, a Michigan doctor who victimized U.S. gymnasts and female college athletes.
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