By Christine Dunn and Amira Dehmani
Last month, the Congressional Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released an Interim Report titled “Coast Guard’s Efforts to Conceal the Operation Fouled Anchor Investigation from Congress and the Public.”
Operation Fouled Anchor (“OFA”) was an investigation launched in 2014 examining the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy (“CGA” or “the Academy”) between the 1980s and early 2000s. The investigation reviewed over 100 incidents of sexual assault at the Academy, concluding that sexual misconduct was uncontrolled and unchecked, and Academy leaders repeatedly mishandled reports, failed to investigate complaints and actively concealed incidents.
Incoming Leaders Reneged on Disclosure
The Interim Report details numerous instances in which high-ranking members of the Coast Guard took deliberate steps to evade congressional inquiries and hide findings from Congress and the public.
The OFA investigation began in September 2014, when a former cadet reported that she’d been sexually assaulted at the Academy in the 1990s, which the Academy failed to investigate properly at the time. This revelation launched an investigation into her case and, in the course of the investigation, exposed numerous other cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment that had occurred at the Academy for decades. In 2015, Congress was briefed about the original individual case, but the broader scope of OFA was not made clear to Congress.
In March 2018, Coast Guard Vice Commandant Admiral Charles Michel sent out a memorandum assigning various OFA-related tasks to Coast Guard agencies, including the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS), the Director of Governmental and Public Affairs, the Assistant Commandant for Human Resources, the Consolidated Disposition Authority, the Academy, and the Judge Advocate General. In April 2018, leaders named in the memo began to meet to coordinate a response. According to the Interim Report, both Admiral Michel and Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft recently told Congress that they “conducted Operation Fouled Anchor with the intention of disclosing it to both Congress and the public and believed it would be so disclosed.” However, in May 2018, Admiral Michel was replaced by Admiral Charles Ray and Admiral Zukunft was replaced by Admiral Karl Schultz. The incoming leaders reneged on the goal of disclosing to Congress and instead concealed the OFA findings.
In fact, in September 2018, Coast Guard officials engaged in discussions on the “pros and cons of going external” with the OFA findings. According to an October 2018 memo presented in a briefing to Admiral Charles Ray, the recommendation was to “not affirmatively disclose information regarding Operation Fouled Anchor, but instead only respond to queries from Congress about individual cases.” The memo also noted that proactively notifying Congress about OFA, would “risk the initiation of comprehensive Congressional investigations, hearings, and media interest.” A handwritten pros and cons list by Admiral Ray notes “investigations without end,” “long-standing policy,” and “avoid catastrophic divide” as reasons not to disclose to Congress.
By November 14, 2018, Admiral Schultz officially decided against “an affirmative disclosure” while the investigation was ongoing. According to former Admiral Zukunft, this was highly unusual, and he had never seen a communications document that recommended against providing information to Congress. Following this decision, “the Subcommittee found no evidence that the discussion about disclosure was revisited at any time before June 2023 [when the story broke in the news], including after Admiral Fagan assumed the position of Commandant.” The Interim Report makes clear that there was a yearslong push to conceal the full Operation Fouled Anchor report from Congress.
Final Report and Evading Congressional Inquiries
In January 2020, the Coast Guard signed and circulated to Admiral Ray a six-page final report on the Operation Fouled Anchor investigation. However, the Subcommittee found that at least 17 versions of the final report had been written, with the longest draft comprised of 26 pages and including detailed accounts of assaults. Although the final version of the report provided a very pared-down recitation of the investigation, it noted that there were 43 cases considered for disposition, with most perpetrators receiving almost no punishment. The final OFA report notes that in three cases perpetrators remained on active duty, two were addressed with only administrative action, five cases met no action due to lack of evidence, and 33 did not proceed due to statute of limitations or the retirement of perpetrators.
The Coast Guard did not submit the final OFA report to Congress, nor inform Congress of the conclusion of the OFA investigation. In fact, in a 2019 congressional request for information related to bullying and harassment at the Academy, the Coast Guard identified roughly 4,600 relevant emails. However, prior to submitting the emails to Congress, Coast Guard officials scrubbed the documents of any mention related to OFA. Congress was not made aware of OFA’s existence until June 2023, when media reports of the cover-up were released.
The Interim Report criticizes the Coast Guard for its refusal to cooperate with Congress in a timely manner, concluding that the Coast Guard “repeatedly failed to comply with the Subcommittee’s investigation… refused to produce responsive documents, aggressively redacted documents that it has produced, erroneously claimed privilege over responsive documents, and limited the Subcommittee’s access to key documents.”
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight Represents Coast Guard Academy Survivors
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight has taken an active role in exposing and working to bring justice for survivors of the Coast Guard Academy. Thus far, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight has filed 22 separate Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”) administrative complaints against the United States Coast Guard; its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security; and its former parent agency, the Department of Transportation, (collectively “the Coast Guard”), on behalf of 22 former CGA cadets who were sexually assaulted during their time at the Academy.
In the complaints, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight alleges that the Coast Guard’s failure to implement adequate policies and practices allowed sexual violence to go unchecked at the Academy, resulting in significant harm. The complaints further allege that the Coast Guard condoned and actively concealed the rampant nature of sexual assault and harassment of Academy students, knowingly placing the claimants and other cadets in danger. The Interim Report’s findings regarding the widespread nature of the Coast Guard’s cover-up of OFA provide crucial support to these claims.