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WASHINGTON — Several eminent gymnasts, including FBI directors Christopher Wray and Simone Biles, will testify at Wednesday’s Senate hearing about the agency’s clumsy handling of the Lawrence G. Nassar sexual abuse case, the first public questioning of the proper handling of this case. Investigate one of the largest cases of sexual abuse in United States history.
The trial comes days after the FBI fired an agent who initially worked on the case and ultimately investigated Nassar, a former national gymnastics team doctor who was accused of abusing multiple gymnasts, including the Olympians, under the guise of physical exams.
And it came two months after the Justice Department chief investigator released a report that harshly criticized the FBI for making significant mistakes in this regard. These mistakes allowed Nassar to continue treating patients for eight months at Michigan State University, where he worked, and in and around Lansing, Mich., including a local gymnastics center and a high school.
Nassar, who was sentenced to life in prison for sexual misconduct, could harass more than 70 girls and women, while the FBI did not act, according to the inspector general’s report.
The two FBI agents originally assigned to the case no longer work for the agency. Michael Langeman, a special supervisory agent at the FBI’s Indianapolis office, was fired close to Wednesday’s hearing, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. These individuals did not want their names published as they were not authorized to speak about the case. The Washington Post was the first newspaper to publish news of Langeman’s firing.
Langeman, who was not available for immediate comment, was not named in the investigative general’s report, but his actions as a special supervising agent and numerous significant missteps were detailed. The report said Langeman should have known that Nassar’s abuse was likely widespread, but did not urgently investigate the case.
Langeman interviewed only one of the three elite gymnasts who gave USA Gymnastics details of Nassar’s abuse and did not properly document that interview or open an investigation. In an interview report that Langeman submitted to the FBI 17 months after speaking to Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney, a gymnast who was not named in the report, she included statements she did not make, according to the report.
Like other agents initially involved in the case, Langeman did not alert local or state officials to Nassar’s alleged abuse, violating FBI policy that stated that crimes against children “always require a broad, multijudicial, and multidisciplinary approach.”
Langeman later said he had prepared a preliminary report on Nassar and requested that the case be transferred to the Lansing office because that was where Nassar was based in the State of Michigan. However, the document was not found in the FBI database, according to the inspector general’s report.
W. Jay Abbott, a special agent at the FBI’s Indianapolis office, is also no longer with the FBI after retiring in 2018. The report stated that he made false statements to Justice Department investigators and also “violated FBI policy and made extremely poor decisions. federal code of ethics.” According to the report, he was seeking a job with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and discussed this with Steve Penny, President of USA Gymnastics. Abbott applied for the job at the USOPC, but did not get the position—though he never applied to Justice Department investigators, he said.
Hundreds of girls and women harassed by Nassar await news from the FBI about the errors in the case. Olympic gold medalist Biles said he wanted to know “who knew what and when” about Nassar. He won a silver medal and a bronze medal at the Tokyo Games after quitting team competition due to a mental health issue.
Biles will testify alongside his former teammates Maroney, Aly Raisman, and Maggie Nichols, known as “Athlete A” in the Nassar trial for being the first elite gymnast to report abuse to USA Gymnastics. This was in July 2015. The FBI’s Lansing office launched its official investigation into Nassar in October 2016.
Adam Goldman Contributed to reports from Washington.
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