FBI agents accused of botching Larry Nassar sex-abuse case won’t face charges

John Manly, a lawyer for many of Nassar’s alleged victims, called the decision “incomprehensible” and said the FBI agents “violated their oaths of office and colluded in the cover up of the worst sexual assault scandal in the history of sports.” He said the timing of the announcement — shortly before a holiday weekend, and during coverage of a school shooting — “is one more cynical attempt by the [Justice Department] to cover up FBI complicity” in the Nassar scandal.

The decision marks the third time that federal prosecutors examined whether a senior FBI official and a case agent should be charged with lying about their work on the Nassar case. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco opened the review after several world-famous gymnasts in September gave tearful testimony to Congress, describing in horrifying detail the abuse they endured and their incredulity over the FBI’s decision not to further investigate Nassar after the allegations against him first surfaced.

Monaco, in announcing the review, said officials would look again at the issue because new evidence had surfaced. Though she did not specify what that evidence was, lawmakers have sharply criticized the Justice Department for not pursuing charges after the agency’s inspector general concluded a supervisory agent and his boss lied to internal investigators in a bid to cover up their failures.

Nassar spent thousands on himself in prison while paying little to his victims

It is rare for the Justice Department even to consider reopening a case that was closed without charges. One of the Nassar agents retired years ago and the other was fired last summer in the wake of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s scathing report, which found major missteps in the FBI’s handling of allegations against Nassar in 2015 that allowed him to victimize more patients before he was arrested by state authorities the following year.

In its statement, the Justice Department said it will “continue to learn from what occurred in this matter, and undertake efforts to keep victims at the center of our work and to ensure that they are heard, respected, and treated fairly throughout the process, as they deserve,” and said it wanted to work with Congress to address unspecified gaps in the law to “help prevent events like this from taking place in the future and hold perpetrators accountable.”

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) called the decision “infuriating.” In a joint statement, they said: “FBI agents who knew of Larry Nassar’s…