A journalist who alleges officials orchestrated lies to victims of rapes and physical assaults at the , U. S. Coast Guard Academy , has gone open on the day of the , Coast Guard , commandant’s looks before a , U. S. Senate , panel looking into the service’s cover- up of an inner review of the physical misconduct cases.
On Sunday,  , Shannon Norenberg, who served for 11 years as the school’s sexual assault response consultant, announced online that she has resigned after learning the , Coast Guard , had used her to stay to victims as part of its cover- off of” Operation Fouled Anchor”.
Norenberg’s speech was posted on the website of , Maritime Legal Aid &, Advocacy Ltd., a nonprofit corporation.
” The , Coast Guard , lied to me”, wrote Norenberg, who resigned , May 20. ” Worse than that, they used me to lie to patients, used me to silence subjects, and used me in a coordinated effort to prevent victims of sexual assault at the Academy from speaking to , Congress , about their attack and about the , Coast Guard ‘s , analysis of their circumstances”.
The academy referred a request for comment Tuesday to Coast Guard Headquarters in , Washington, D. C., which had not responded by the end of the day.
Norenberg, 54, who was unavailable Monday, will attend a hearing the , Senate Permanent Subcommittee , on Investigations is holding Tuesday, titled” Coast Guard Oversight: Sexual Assault and Harassment”, according to her attorney,  , Ryan Melogy. She has spoken with the staff of the panel, according to Melogy’s email, and has indicated she is willing to testify in front of the panel.
She has not publicly identified by name any , Coast Guard , or , Coast Guard Academy , official who instructed her to lie.
Adm.  , Linda Fagan, the , Coast Guard , commandant, is scheduled to testify at Tuesday’s hearing. In September, the subcommittee, headed by , U. S.  , Sen.  , Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn., opened an inquiry into” Operation Fouled Anchor”, which reviewed sexual misconduct cases that occurred at the academy between 1990 and 2006.
The review, which documented the , Coast Guard ‘s , original mishandling of the cases, was withheld from , Congress , and the public. Completed in 2020, its existence was revealed last June by , CNN, the cable news network.
In her public statement, Norenberg said she learned of” Operation Fouled Anchor” in late 2018 after being summoned to Coast Guard Headquarters, where she attended a “very secretive and highly unusual” meeting with a few others, including an agent from the Coast Guard Investigative Service and a , Coast Guard , attorney.
Years later, Norenberg said, she learned the , Coast Guard , required many people aware of” Operation Fouled Anchor” to sign non- disclosure agreements preventing them from talking about it. She, however, was never asked to sign an NDA.
Norenberg said she learned dozens of sexual assaults investigated in connection with” Operation Fouled Anchor” had not been entered into a , Department of Defense , database, in apparent violation of protocol. She said she was told she would join the , Coast Guard , investigator and the , Coast Guard , attorney in setting up visits with all the sexual assault victims who had been interviewed as part of” Operation Fouled Anchor”.
The three of them would then travel around the country, she said, to meet with the victims who consented to in-person visits.
Norenberg said in her statement,” The way it was pitched to me was that this would be a kind of’apory tour.’ ” Apology was not the term the , Coast Guard , used, however. Instead, we were to offer the victims an’ Official Expression of Regret.'”
She said she, the investigator and the attorney were given a list of “talking points” to present to the victims, about 25 to 30 of whom they met with during a four- to- five- month period in 2019. She became uncomfortable, she said, upon being told they would not be offering victims the “CG- 6095”, an official form used when people report sexual assault.
” Having this form makes it much easier for survivors of Military Sexual Trauma to obtain services from the , VA , ( U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs ) to deal with their trauma, Norenberg said.
She said she concluded , Coast Guard , leaders deliberately withheld , VA , military sexual trauma benefits and services from sexual assault victims to prevent” Operation Fouled Anchor “from being discovered by , Congress.
Further, she alleged,  , Coast Guard , officials did n’t want the victims” to have any proof that their cases even existed or had ever been investigated.”
Norenberg said she was shocked to learn about the” Operation Fouled Anchor” cover-up, and that she only recently learned of her unwitting involvement in it.
” We were n’t sent out there to help these people, I realized,” she said”. We were sent out there as part of an elaborate coverup of ‘ Operation Fouled Anchor ‘ designed to hide the existence of the investigation from , Congress , and the public.”
In her statement, Norenberg issues a personal apology to” Operation Fouled Anchor “victims, and acknowledges she is herself a survivor of military sexual trauma, having been raped by a drill sergeant after graduating from Army boot camp at Fort , Jackson, N. C.
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