Blumenthal Releases New Report Featuring Dozens of Firsthand Accounts of Sexual Assault and Harassment in the Coast Guard

[NEW LONDON, CT] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), released a majority staff report today highlighting firsthand accounts of Coast Guard enlisted personnel, officers, and Coast Guard Academy cadets who have experienced sexual assault, harassment, and other forms of misconduct. The report, A Pervasive Problem: Voices of Coast Guard Sexual Assault and Harassment Survivors, was released ahead of a field hearing in New London, Connecticut, featuring testimony from two current and three former members of the Coast Guard.

“The voices of these whistleblowers make clear that sexual assault and sexual harassment in the Coast Guard are fleet-wide problems, impacting enlisted members and officers just as pervasively as cadets. For far too long, Coast Guard survivors have felt unheard and unseen. They have been brushed aside and silenced. This report seeks to redress that harm,” Blumenthal wrote in a note from the Chair at the front of the report.

The report presents accounts from the more than 80 whistleblowers who came forward to report their personal experiences in the Coast Guard and at the Coast Guard Academy since PSI opened an inquiry into sexual misconduct within the Coast Guard in September 2023. These stories, spanning from the 1970s through the 2020s, depict systemic and ongoing failures at the Coast Guard Academy and in the Coast Guard.

Survivor stories received by PSI include common themes, describing a culture of ostracization, shaming, and disbelief that deterred victims of abuse from reporting – these experiences were compounded by reports of leadership specifically discouraging abuse victims from coming forward or threatening to punish those who did for unrelated misconduct. Survivors who did report their abuse often found the investigations retraumatizing and inadequate, frequently resulting in retaliation against the abuse victim and little to no accountability for perpetrators.

Sexual abuse survivors continued to experience mistreatment by the Coast Guard after reporting their assaults or harassment. Not only were some victims refused adequate medical care and services, others were denied the necessary documentation to access U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs services or refused their own records, impacting their ability to understand what happened to them and to move forward with their lives

In a note from the Chair preceding the report, Blumenthal called for additional accountability and transparency to address the ongoing sexual assault and harassment crisis within the Coast Guard.

“It is imperative that the Coast Guard uses all means available to hold accountable both individual perpetrators and the leadership that covered up their wrongdoing. And it is equally essential that the Coast Guard begins to leverage meaningful, swift, and consistent accountability against present and future perpetrators. The culture will not change until the Coast Guard makes clear that sexual assault and harassment will not be tolerated,” Blumenthal wrote.

“Nor will the culture change until the Coast Guard makes a meaningful commitment to transparency.”

“Until the Coast Guard is willing to fully reckon with its failures, it will remain tethered to them.”

In September 2023, PSI opened a bipartisan inquiry into the Coast Guard’s internal review of sexual assault and harassment cases that occurred between 1990 and 2006, which was called Operation Fouled Anchor. The Subcommittee’s inquiry has focused on the Coast Guard’s original mishandling of these cases and the Coast Guard’s failure to reveal Operation Fouled Anchor, and its associated report, to Congress and the public. The Subcommittee is also examining the ways in which the Coast Guard currently handles reports of sexual assault and harassment.  In December, the Subcommittee held a hearing in which four current and former Coast Guard Academy cadets testified about the Coast Guard’s mishandling of their cases. In June, Admiral Linda Fagan, Commandant of the Coast Guard, testified before PSI. 

The full text of the Senators’ initial letter to the Coast Guard is available here. The letter from December 2023 is available here. Video of the Subcommittee’s hearing in December featuring testimony from survivors can be viewed here. The Subcommittee’s February 2024 letter is available here. The Subcommittee’s hearing invitation to Admiral Linda Fagan’s is available here, and the video of the Admiral Fagan’s testimony in June 2024 is available here. 

A livestream of Thursday's field hearing featuring testimony from five whistleblowers is available here.

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