Senator says Coast Guard used illegal agreements to silence sexual assault victims

US Coast Guard leaders illegally used nondisclosure agreements to prevent sexual assault victims from speaking out about their alleged attacks, according to a congressional inquiry sparked by a CNN report into sexual misconduct at the prestigious Coast Guard Academy.

US Coast Guard leaders illegally used nondisclosure agreements to prevent sexual assault victims from speaking out about their alleged attacks, according to a congressional inquiry sparked by a CNN report into sexual misconduct at the prestigious Coast Guard Academy. The use of the agreements appeared to be part of a “years-long concerted effort to conceal information about rapes and other sexual assaults at the Academy from Congress and the public,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a ranking member of a Congressional committee looking into the Coast Guard’s actions, wrote in a letter sent Sunday to Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan. “Requiring victims to agree not to discuss what happened to them is particularly reprehensible,” Cruz wrote, noting that restricting any member of the Coast Guard from communicating with Congress would clearly violate federal laws. “If agencies are allowed to silence their employees … they will shield waste, fraud, abuse, and even criminal activity from oversight.” The Coast Guard said in a statement Monday that the agreements it previously asked victims to sign were not intended to silence them, but to protect the integrity of the investigation and to ensure that the privacy of other victims and witnesses involved in the broader Fouled Anchor probe was also protected. The agency said the records had been provided to Cruz’s office as part of the commandant’s “commitment to transparency” but did not comment on Cruz’s criticism that the agreements were illegal. The congressional review by the Senate Commerce Committee is one of several government inquiries centered on a series of CNN stories into a secret Coast Guard probe dubbed “Operation Fouled Anchor,” which documented decades of cover-ups of sexual misconduct. CNN reported last year that Coast Guard leaders had guarded the secrecy of the internal investigation to the point that officials with access to case materials had to sign non-disclosure agreements. In the letter sent to Fagan, Cruz said that records received by his staff show that the Coast Guard personnel who had been silenced by these agreements included subjects, investigators, witnesses and assault victims themselves.