CNN
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The CIA has “didn’t deal with allegations of sexual assault and harassment inside its workforce” in a “skilled and uniform method,” and appeared to mete out “little to no accountability or punishment” for perpetrators, according to a House report launched on Monday.
The Home Intelligence Committee, in an eight-page report summarizing the findings of its year-long investigation into the company’s dealing with of sexual harassment and sexual assault, discovered that there was “confusion and dysfunction within the course of for reporting” allegations. Victims, the report discovered, have been “deterred from coming ahead as a result of victims didn’t have anonymity and have been unable to hunt confidential help.”
Maybe most damning, the report discovered that “victims have been conscious of little to no accountability or punishment for the perpetrators of the assaults or harassment typically due to an insufficient investigatory course of.”
The CIA for greater than a yr has been embroiled in allegations by victims that it has “grossly mishandled” their allegations of sexual assault and harassment. Starting in early 2023, a collection of whistleblowers started to share testimony with the congressional intelligence committees. By the tip of the yr, each the Senate and the Home committees had opened investigations, the CIA inspector general had initiated a “particular evaluate,” and a minimum of one lady had sued the company for, she claimed, discouraging her from lodging a legal grievance towards her assailant and trying to intimidate her from testifying at his trial.
The Home committee mentioned that it interviewed 26 whistleblowers through the course of its investigation. It additionally acquired 15 employees briefings and reviewed 4,000 pages of paperwork produced by the CIA, which it praised for cooperating with the investigation and mentioned “demonstrated an eagerness to successfully stop and reply to sexual assault and harassment situations.”
The CIA has taken some steps to enhance its dealing with of circumstances.
In 2023, the company introduced that it had appointed a Navy psychologist to go an workplace answerable for responding to sexual assault allegations. She was tasked with enhancing the company’s dealing with of such claims.
However her workplace, the Home report discovered, “lacked the required assets and authority to meet its supposed objective.”
In an announcement, a CIA spokesperson mentioned that latest laws drafted by the committee had enabled it to increase the workplace and “present extra help to officers.”
“We take the problem of sexual assault and harassment extraordinarily critically,” the spokesperson mentioned. “We’re completely dedicated to fostering a protected, respectful office atmosphere for our staff and have taken vital steps to make sure that, each by bolstering our concentrate on prevention and strengthening the Company’s dealing with of those points after they come up.”
The report additionally discovered that “there was an inconsistent method to, or lack of, well timed coordination with regulation enforcement.”
In the meantime, the Workplace of Equal Employment Alternative “had inside points that rendered it unable to successfully interact in response efforts,” the report mentioned.
One of many challenges that the company faces is that if both or each the sufferer and the perpetrator are working underneath cowl, some officers say, it turns into logistically difficult to lodge a grievance with native regulation enforcement with out jeopardizing that cowl. In August, the Fairfax County Basic District Courtroom broke new floor when it convicted a CIA officer accused of assaulting an unnamed feminine colleague in a stairway of assault and battery.
The CIA has since fired the sufferer in that case in what her legal professional claims is evident retaliation; a CIA spokesman on the time referred to as the assertion “factually inaccurate.”
Congress in December handed a collection of reforms knowledgeable by the testimony and investigation, together with creating a brand new reporting course of, requiring the CIA director to develop uniform insurance policies and coaching, and establishing a “Particular Sufferer Investigator” who would examine stories of assault and harassment. The investigator can be required to coordinate inside investigations with the related regulation enforcement company “as vital and applicable within the occasion the sufferer chooses to pursue civilian legal fees.”
Kevin Carroll, who represents the previous CIA worker who was assaulted within the stairway, praised the report as “wonderful” however added that ongoing congressional oversight is required.
“Specifically, the Company must cease retaliating towards whistleblowers who step ahead to discuss intercourse crimes, cooperate with regulation enforcement investigations and prosecutions of these crimes, together with by native authorities,” he mentioned.