Olympic gymnasts, others sue FBI for $1 billion for allegedly mishandling Larry Nassar sexual assault claims



A group of more than 90 young women — including U.S. Olympic gymnastics stars Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and McKayla Maroney — filed federal tort claims against the FBI on Wednesday seeking more than $1 billion in damages for the bureau's failure to act on sexual assault allegations against former USA gymnastics doctor, Larry Nassar.

In the lawsuit, the majority of claimants say they may have never suffered abuse at the hands of Nassar if only the FBI had done its job starting in 2015 when agents were made aware of allegations against him. But over the following year, the claimants allege the bureau failed to act, thus allowing the predator to abuse more your women and girls, NBC News reported.

It wasn't until December 2016 that Nassar was finally indicted on federal child pornography charges amid a flurry of state-level sexual assault charges. In January 2018, the disgraced doctor pleaded guilty to his crimes and is now serving essentially a life sentence behind bars.

A Congressional investigation in 2019 found that the FBI, the U.S. Olympic Committee, and USA Gymnastics were all aware of the allegations against Nassar in 2015 but sat on the information for 421 days — failing to even warn Nassar's employer at the time, Michigan State University, that he was accused of abusing girls.

"It is time for the FBI to be held accountable," said Maggie Nichols, a national champion gymnast at Oklahoma in 2017-19, according to the Associated Press.

"If the FBI had simply done its job, Nassar would have been stopped before he ever had the chance to abuse hundreds of girls, including me," added former University of Michigan gymnast Samantha Roy.

The lawsuits follow the Justice Department's stunning decision last month not to prosecute two FBI agents accused of bungling the original investigation and subsequently misleading other investigators.

"My fellow survivors and I were betrayed by every institution that was supposed to protect us — the U.S. Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, the FBI, and now the Department of Justice," Maroney said in a blistering statement. "It is clear that the only path to justice and healing is through the legal process."

The claims are collectively being filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, a law that enables people to seek redress if they believe they have been harmed by negligent or wrongful actions of the federal government. Under the law, the bureau will now have six months to respond. Depending on their response, formal lawsuits front claimants could follow.

Each individual claim seeks a differing amount in damages, but together the claims amount to more than $1 billion, confirmed their lawyer, John C. Manly, in a statement.

As of Wednesday morning, neither the FBI nor the Justice Department had responded publicly to the tort claims.

Victims Demand Justice After FBI Ignored Nassar’s Serial Abuse, Sexual Assault

'All we needed was for one adult to do the right thing,' said gold medalist Aly Raisman, who was abused by Nassar for years.

Sen. Blumenthal Says DOJ ‘Failed To Appear’ At Nassar Hearing, Vows Further Action

'Let's be very clear: The FBI's inaction led to victimization'

While Larry Nassar Spends Thousands In Prison, His Victims Collect $8 Per Month

Nassar owes victims nearly $60,000 but has only paid $300 in sentencing fees. Meanwhile, he's spent more than $10,000 on personal finances behind bars.

Whitlock: Simone Biles and the celebration of quitting are latest signs America has been hacked



The pace of change in American culture is too rapid. A contemplative and reflective nation has turned rash and emotional. Feelings drive the mood and attention span of the citizenry. Fear fuels our decision-making.

With irrational children punching in the data and interpreting the printouts, America is being forced to operate at the speed and with the precision of a computer. Silicon Valley social media companies download information into our smartphones, and we instantly spit out conclusions and solutions. It's unsustainable. Societies can't process information at warp speed. Plagued by malware and viruses, we're malfunctioning.

George Floyd is more revered than George Washington. "Three Men and a Baby" is no longer a Hollywood movie featuring Tom Selleck, Ted Danson, and Steve Guttenberg. It's the ideal family, according to the BLMLGBTQIA+ Alphabet Mafia. The same group says "gay is the new black." Jesus and Christianity are more polarizing than Allah and Islam.

But nothing has changed more rapidly than our position on quitting. In 48 hours, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles transformed the felonious act of quitting into a deed of breathtaking heroism. On Tuesday, after a poor vault, Biles withdrew from the Olympic team competition, citing mental stress. The next day, she announced she would not compete in the all-around competition.

U.S. Olympic CEO Sarah Hirshland called Biles' act "incredibly selfless." That is not a typo. Hirshland did not call it selfish. She intentionally used the word selfless. USA Gymnastics, in a separate statement, labeled Biles' decision an act of bravery and courage. Athletes, celebrities, and political figures across our country took to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to let Biles know her decision to quit was appropriate. Biles acknowledged over Twitter that she has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support.

There's now nothing more American than quitting. When the going gets tough, the tough claim the mental stress was just too high.

I reject this new standard.

Nothing has haunted my adult life more than my decision to quit the Ball State football team in 1989. I've reflected on the decision for 32 years. The previous season, I started every game on a team that finished 8-3 and flirted with cracking the top 25 after a 6-0 start. I played the entire season with an undiagnosed torn anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee. I hurt it during spring practice, and our team doctor misdiagnosed the injury. The knee bothered me the entire season.

When the 1988 season concluded, I sought an evaluation from the Colts' team doctor, Donald Shelbourne, an orthopedic surgeon who doubled as the team physician for my high school. Dr. Shelbourne diagnosed my ACL tear within five minutes. He told me my knee was "tight" and I could likely get away with playing another season with the tear. I decided not to play my fifth and final season. I quit.

The 1989 Ball State football team won the Mid-American Conference title and played in the California Raisin Bowl in Fresno. My regret isn't missing out on the championship. It was letting my teammates down, particularly two of my college roommates, Frank Barnes and Ralph Wize. We're still friends to this day. I talk and text with them daily. I let my disdain for our head coach and bitterness over feeling misled about my knee cost me my final opportunity to play football.

My headspace wasn't right. I still regret quitting. I regret it even though my final year of college, free from the responsibility of football, allowed me to focus on becoming a legitimate student and journalist. I worked for the school newspaper and began laying the foundation for a career that has served me well for 30 years. Everything worked out for the best.

I still regret quitting. It's un-American. Or at least it had been. The never-quit ethos made this country the envy of the world. European countries don't work as hard as Americans. They allegedly live happier and more fulfilled lives.

The Olympics is a global event put on for the entertainment of globalists, people with no interest in or respect for the uniqueness of America. All the people celebrating Simone Biles want our country to be like France, England, Canada, Italy, and every other place that's good with being an also-ran.

Computers, the internet, and smartphones have made the world a much smaller place. I've long since quit thinking that's a good thing. We're too connected to the rest of the world. The American system has been hacked.

Whitlock: Simone Biles, stars of ‘Black Girl Tragic’ are not baby seals. They don’t need empathy-feeding breasts.



Here's a slogan for all the sports writers, talking heads, activist athletes, and social media brand-builders:

"Make Sports Racist Again."

That appears to be the goal. We want the sports world to reflect the sensibilities of the early 1900s, when everyone picked sides based on skin color. Life was easier back then; it required far less thought. In the 1910 fight of the century, white people cheered for Big Jim Jeffries like the plight of their race depended on it. Black people cheered for the Galveston Giant, Jack Johnson, for the same reason.

A century later, a tiny black gymnast, Simone Biles, is color-coding our passions once again. On Tuesday night, at the Tokyo Olympics, Biles bowed out of the team competition, citing mental stress. Biles, 24, is the most decorated gymnast in history and the biggest star at the Olympics. Her early departure from the team competition destroyed any chance of the U.S. winning the gold medal.

It was a selfish, narcissistic act, a deed that perfectly defines coddled and selfie-obsessed Millennials. The only people who don't see it this way are the growing number of sports experts and fans who interpret all actions through a racial lens. The people making sports more racist again. They don't see an elite athlete folding in her biggest moment. They see a black woman who must be defended as though the plight of black people depends on her reputation.

In their corrupted and bigoted minds, they see yet another wounded, helpless black person in need of saving. We're all just baby seals incapable of surviving failure without the sustenance and empathy of massive amounts of warm white and chocolate breast milk.

NBC, Reuters, and the Hollywood Reporter, just to name a few, published stories detailing the outpouring of support directed toward Biles, including, of course, former first lady Michelle Obama. Even President Joe Biden's "Red Priestess," Jen Psaki, bared her left-wing breast to nurture Biles, tweeting: "Gratitude and support are what Simone Biles deserves. Still the GOAT and we are all just lucky to be able to see her in action."

I'm not saying we needed to pile on Biles. But we know damn well she wouldn't be receiving this kind of support if she were a white athlete, or even a male athlete. Biles, pothead swimmer Sha'Carri Richardson, protesting hammer thrower Gwen Berry, and fragile tennis star Naomi Osaka — the cast members of the U.S. Olympic reality show "Black Girls Tragic" — live inside a protective bubble filled with the breast milk of Stacey Abrams, Michael Eric Dyson, Max Kellerman, Maxine Waters, and Maria Taylor.

The truth is, Biles' Olympic Fold tramples Chris Webber's infamous NCAA Tournament timeout, Bill Buckner's ghastly World Series blunder, Tony Romo's ignominious field-goal flub, and Jean van de Velde's shocking British Open collapse.

Simone Biles cracked. She choked. She quit. And then she threw out a popular excuse she knew few people would question out of fear of appearing insensitive and being accused of racism.

"Whenever you get in a high stress situation you kind of freak out and don't really know how to handle all of those emotions, especially at the Olympic Games," she told reporters. "I have to focus on my mental health and not jeopardize my wellbeing."

On Wednesday, Biles announced she won't be competing in the all-around competition on Thursday. She, again, will focus on her mental health. Maybe Biles shouldn't have competed in these Olympics. She's 24. That's like being a 40-year-old football player. Maybe Biles is competing reluctantly. She might be in these Games at the behest of Nike and other brands rather than her own ambition.

Whatever her motivation, our reaction to her failure shouldn't be color-coded and color-driven. She let the nation and her teammates down. She should be held accountable for that. There's nothing heroic about quitting. Her actions are similar to the Indianapolis Colts defensive back Vontae Davis, who retired from football at halftime of a game.

My favorite athletes of all time are Tiger Woods and Magic Johnson. Their skin color played a role in my passion for them. Tiger competed in a sport in which men of color had previously had little success. I chose Magic in the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird feud. I don't degrade white sports fans for loving Bird. He dominated a sport dominated by black men. I get it.

However, I've criticized both Tiger and Magic when they've failed. I blasted Magic for quitting as the Lakers' team president two years ago. It's natural to want to see people who look like you have success.

It's just as natural to be upset when people shirk their responsibilities, fail to represent our country at the highest level, and make convenient excuses for their irresponsibility and failure.

The people who want to make America more racist again are wrong. Being black and being stressed are not acceptable excuses for failure.

Couch: It’s OK to be angry at and supportive of Simone Biles



America's pastime is a simple one: arguing left vs. right. Nothing in between. No gray area. Nothing murky, nothing blurred.

Simone Biles is the latest ball in play. The greatest gymnast of all time dropped out of team competition in the Tokyo Olympics Tuesday as the U.S. women tried to catch the Russians for the gold medal. Biles is so dominant that half of the sport's most advanced moves were her inventions and are named after her. Without Biles, it was hopeless for Team USA. Wednesday, she dropped out of the upcoming individual all-around competition.

Biles said dropping out to "take a back seat and work on my mindfulness" was a decision she had to make for her mental health. She said she was competing for others and not herself. This wasn't fun any more. It was overwhelming pressure.

With that, the argument started to divide along political lines, as every argument does these days. Should we be angry with Biles for walking out on her team and country at the biggest moment? Or should we feel sympathetic toward Biles, who apparently has a mental health crisis like so many Americans?

The answer is Option C: Both.

Mental health issues should be taken seriously, but you can't be so self-absorbed that you walk off in the middle of your sport's Super Bowl, as if you don't even know your teammates exist.

It's true that grinding it out is the definition of mental toughness, and all the great moments in sports history are examples. It's also true that today's young athletes face new problems, new challenges to their mental health.

Social media puts them constantly under a microscope. Interactions with technology instead of real people in front of them makes them less able to empathize, to see how their actions affect others.

Meanwhile, we keep throwing old maxims at these new problems. When a moment comes up like this, other generations start talking about how, back in their day, their leg split in two and they duct-taped it back together and finished the big game.

Mental toughness is important, and Biles has already proven hers. She couldn't have gotten to where she is without it.

However, never being able to escape the public eye has made her pressures different from what other generations faced.

"Last week I talked with an athlete who said, 'I can do 99 things right, but I do one thing wrong and the whole world knows immediately,'" Dr. Joel Fish, a nationally renowned sports psychologist, told TheBlaze. "The microscope has become worldwide."

Social media is one of the villains. That's where Biles is pressured to be perfect, "and perfection can eat you up," Fish said.

The pressure to be perfect turns you into a perfectionist. Perfectionism leads to mental health issues.

Or as Winston Churchill famously said: "The pursuit of perfection is the enemy of progress."

If we frame everything in an A or B binary, we'll never solve anything, because that's not about finding answers as much as scoring points.

Today's young people have a problem. We've seen Naomi Osaka and Kevin Love and Michael Phelps and others talking about mental health struggles.

And we frame that discussion as toughness vs. snowflakes when the issue is wrapped inside.

Biles should have been prepared for the moment. She put in the hours from her early childhood to be the best of all time.

She came to Tokyo with the demands that she's already the best ever and now she needs to get better. In the buildup of the Olympics, Biles was adding to the difficulty of her routines, inventing new moves that were beyond the moves no one else can do anyway. The pressure on her was this: Being the GOAT is not good enough. The gymnastics federation counted on her, the endorsers banked on her, even her Olympic teammates leaned on her.

That's what she signed up for, as has every GOAT in every sport before her. It was not unfair to her.

The flaw was in not preparing her with mechanisms to cope with the intense pressure that was always going to come with being Simone Biles. Did any of her development include training on how to take care of her mental health? It can't become part of the process only after the pain starts.

Today's kids live their lives on social media. Nothing is face-to-face. They think they're expanding their influence and exposure worldwide but are really living in a bubble. They make "friends" on social media with people they never actually meet.

That way, you don't ever have to interact with anyone.

So they are taught nothing about emotional intelligence, develop no empathy, learn nothing about being a selfless leader to others.

In gymnastics, unlike most sports, perfection requires every last second of competition to be mistake-free. One bad second and it's over.

When Biles wasn't perfect the first day, or in her attempt to land a vault the second day, she should have been able to turn to the coping tools she'd been taught.

With no tools, the greatest of all time simply tapped out. She hurt her teammates. She didn't even consider them. She never thought about how her actions would affect them as she walked off in the middle of a competition, like an actor leaving at intermission of a Broadway show.

Biles needed to work on herself, but shouldn't have been oblivious to the concept of Other People.

Biles' self-obsession at an Olympics is infuriating. I'm hoping she gets some help.

There’s No ‘I’ In Team, But There Is In Simone Biles

Team USA team wasn't counting on Simone Biles to be their cheerleader. They were relying on her to do the job she came to do, and she didn't.

Sorry, Simone Biles, The Olympics Isn’t About You, It’s About Winning For America

"I feel like I’m also not having as much fun and this Olympic Games I wanted it to be for myself and it felt like I was still doing for other people," Biles said.

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