Adm. Linda Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard, testifies Wednesday, July 24, 2024, at a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing. (Joe Gromelski/Special to Stars and Stripes)
The Coast Guard must prove service members were held accountable for the sexual assault cover-up at its academy if leaders want to rebuild public trust and overcome recruiting shortfalls, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson told the service’s commandant on Wednesday.
“I expect those responsible for orchestrating this cover-up to be held accountable,” Thompson, the top Democrat for the House Committee on Homeland Security, said as members questioned Coast Guard Adm. Linda Fagan on a wide range of topics. “It’s imperative that the Coast Guard restore trust with its workforce, Congress and the public by changing the culture that allowed these events to occur and ensuring that they never happen again. [It] is all the more important because, as with all our military branches, the Coast Guard is facing a workforce shortage.”
Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., and other members from both parties asked questions of Fagan about the yearslong cover-up of the sexual assault investigation known as Operation Fouled Anchor that came to light last year.
Operation Fouled Anchor is a 2020 report based on a five-year inquiry into the handling of sexual assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy prior to 2006. The Coast Guard only notified Congress about the existence of Fouled Anchor after CNN reporters began digging into it in 2023 — three years after the service decided not to disclose the investigation report.
In the year since the investigation became public, the call for reforms within the Coast Guard have expanded from the academy to the entire service, including enlisted members who have told Congress that they have reported sexual assault only to have their cases mishandled by the service.
Thompson said Fagan’s predecessor, Adm. Karl Schultz, had the opportunity to disclose Fouled Anchor to the committee during a June 2021 hearing focused on the culture of the Coast Guard but did not.
“The Coast Guard’s failure to disclose Operation Fouled Anchor in the face of the committee’s oversight can only be described as deliberate and deceitful,” he said.
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, speaks Wednesday, July 24, 2024, during a hearing about the Coast Guard. (Joe Gromelski/Special to Stars and Stripes)
Fagan has said in previous Capitol Hill hearings that she is waiting for the findings of a Department of Homeland Security inspector general investigation to determine any discipline or other actions necessary. However, she said the service is not sitting idle in the meantime.
Fagan conducted a 90-day accountability and transparency review that generated 33 directed actions. So far, 18 have been completed.
“But more importantly, this is a journey that will continue. This is not a checklist that when it’s done, we’re done. This is how we will create culture, intolerant of any kind of harmful behavior as a service,” Fagan said.
However, the recruiting problems within the Coast Guard predated the public’s discovery of Fouled Anchor.
This year will be the first since 2017 that the Coast Guard is confident it will meet recruiting goals, service officials said in a statement following the hearing.
All branches of the military have struggled to meet enlistment numbers since the coronavirus pandemic, and most are starting to bounce back.
The Coast Guard has 30,334 active-duty members though it is authorized to have 33,305.
“What’s the cause of the problem?” Gimenez asked Fagan. “What are you going to do to make sure that we have enough personnel to run the Coast Guard?”
Fagan said updating the recruiting process and creating professional recruiting positions contributed to the turnaround.
“We are for the first time in nearly nine years on a trajectory to at least stop losing people at a greater rate than we’re onboarding them,” she said. “It is going to take us time to build back, and we will continue to keep our foot on the gas to ensure that we’re recruiting any and all who want to serve this incredible organization.”
The Coast Guard has a goal to enlist 4,200 new members before Sept. 30, which is the end of the fiscal year, according to service officials. As of now, it has recruited 3,300 new members and has enough people signed up for future basic training dates that it expects to meet its goal.
