AG Garland calls FBI's Nassar investigation 'a horrible institutional failure'

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com.

The FBI committed an "unspeakable" failure by not addressing U.S. gymnasts' allegations of abuse from now-convicted sexual assailant Larry Nassar.

Attorney General Merrick Garland apologized for the FBI's alleged negligence handling the case at a Senate hearing Tuesday. Nassar was a Michigan State University sports doctor as well as a doctor at USA Gymnastics. He is serving decades in prison for assaulting female athletes, including medal-winning Olympic gymnasts. Nassar's victims sought help from the FBI over his criminal behavior. However, Garland now agrees the FBI's ambivalence was "a horrible institutional failure." 

"It's almost unspeakable. It is unspeakable," Garland told Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., during the hearing. "What happened to those gymnasts and also the unspeakable way in which the investigation failed to proceed. We have created institutional changes in that regard to make sure it doesn't happen again."

13 NASSAR VICTIMS SEEKING $130M FROM FBI OVER BUNGLED PROBE

Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman, alongside fellow gymnast Maggie Nichols, recounted their experiences before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, in the wake of a Justice Department inspector general’s report that revealed how the FBI failed to act on their complaints of misconduct and assault. As a result, they said, Nassar – who once served as a doctor for USA Gymnastics – was able to continue his pattern of abuse against young women and girls.

Larry Nassar during his sentencing on Feb. 5, 2018, in Charlotte, Michigan, and Simone Biles during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on July 27, 2021. (Scott Olson/Getty Images  |  Laurence Griffiths/Getty