Larry Nassar was just one of Comey’s disasters as head of the FBI

The most vexing thriller of Larry Nassar’s reign of terror at USA Gymnastics is not why the group protected the serial predator. After all, as lengthy as everybody turned a blind eye to the physician molesting lots of of gymnasts, Nassar by no means spoke up about USAG’s personal brutal non-sexual abuse of the ladies. The actual query is why, as soon as the FBI did lastly discover out about the abuse allegations, they refused to do something about them.

During a congressional listening to on the Nassar affair, Olympian McKayla Maroney revealed that she advised the company about her abuse in September 2015, two months after the FBI was first alerted about Nassar. According to the inspector common report detailing the FBI’s failures, the company didn’t observe correct procedures, falsified Maroney’s statements, and took over a yr to finalize its personal report — all details corroborated by Maroney. Ultimately, the inspector common discovered that Nassar abused at the very least 70 victims between the time they first discovered of his crimes in 2015 and his arrest by native authorities in the fall of 2016.

It’s a heartbreaking revelation, however not a very stunning one, contemplating who was working the FBI at the time: James Comey, who oversaw a string of travesties throughout his four-year tenure as director.

Comey critics level to his highest-profile scandal — his dealing with of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s electronic mail server, which dominated the 2016 election. It’s true that by prematurely closing the investigation after which asserting its reopening per week earlier than Election Day, Comey probably handed Donald Trump the presidency at the eleventh hour. But the precise loss of life toll brought on by different examples of FBI malfeasance is way worse.

In 2013, after which when Comey was director in 2014, the FBI investigated Omar Mateen as an individual of curiosity earlier than he went on to bloodbath 49 individuals at Pulse, a homosexual nightclub in Orlando. Despite the indisputable fact that Mateen’s personal father was an FBI informant for years earlier than the mass capturing, the FBI didn’t cease his terrorist assault — the deadliest anti-gay assault in the nation’s historical past.

In 2014, Mohammad Rahimi warned the FBI about his son Ahmad Khan Rahimi’s potential terrorist ties. The FBI finally cleared the latter, who went on to set off three bombs in New York and New Jersey, injuring 35 individuals and sparking a two-day manhunt.

For years, the FBI had been monitoring Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, following the pair to the Curtis Culwell Convention Center in 2015 for an exhibit of footage of Muhammad. Even although the FBI was current and warned by police of a doable assault, the FBI didn’t cease Simpson and Soofi, who initiated a shootout, injuring a safety guard who went on to sue the FBI.

In 2017, a YouTuber warned the FBI {that a} person named “nikolas cruz” commented on his video, “Im going to be knowledgeable college shooter [sic].” A yr later, Nikolas Cruz carried out the deadliest college capturing in the nation’s historical past.

Throughout this time, feminine FBI brokers have been struggling repeated and rampant sexual harassment from male colleagues. One of many lawsuits alleging the company allowed perpetrators to go unpunished throughout Comey’s tenure claimed that “it’s the coverage and observe of the FBI and its OIG to permit senior executives accused of sexual assault to quietly retire with full advantages with out prosecution.”

And, of course, that’s with out even mentioning the Nassar scandal, which the inspector common says included legal conduct by sure members of the FBI underneath Comey.

In just the handful of examples listed right here, Comey’s whole physique depend consists of some 66 lifeless, 36 injured, numerous sexually harassed, and at the very least 70 ladies (that we all know of) sexually abused. All of these have been preventable. The buck was presupposed to cease with Comey, and he deserves each bit of blame.