This hearing of the subcommittee on investigations will come to order. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for being here. My colleagues who are here especially the witnesses who have joined us. This hearing is about a culture of cover up. Its a culture of cover up that the coast guard has spawned and sustained for decades. It has discouraged and deterred victims and survivors of sexual abuse from coming forward. It has denied them justice and it has failed to protect them from retaliation and reprisal when they have stood up and spoken out. It has denied them justice and it has failed to protect them from ret for years, this culture enabled Sexual Misconduct to occur despite evidence of widespread, unaddressed and egregious violations of basic norms. We want to make sure that there is not only transparency but also accountability going forward. This culture has continued to refuse accountability. The type of accountability that comes from naming names and Holding Wrongdoers Accountable. This culture has continued to refuse accountability. The type of accountability that comes from naming names and Holding Wrongdoers Accountable. It is the type of accountability that requires full cooperation with the subcommittee inquiry which so far the coast guard has failed to fully do. As we will hear today, its a culture that has all too often victimized survivors twice. First, when they are assaulted or harassed and later when the leaders in command have failed to hold the perpetrators fully accountable. It is a culture that has fostered fear. Fear of coming forward, fear that lives would be destroyed. Fear that all too often has been proven right. This is not just about foul danger. Its about lost anchor. Its about a coast guard that has lost its way in justice for women who are victims and survivors of Sexual Assault. Its about a coast guard that has abandoned its moral compass and lost its ethical sonar. We are here because the coast guard has continued this problem. We know that the culture can and must be fixed. This past summer we learned that the coast guard failed to disclose to congress a multi year internal investigation into dozens of instances of Sexual Assault at the academy that had been reported but not adequately investigated or otherwise addressed. That investigation known as fouled anchor looked at 102 instances of rape or Sexual Assault from the 90s through 2006 ultimately identifying 43 perpetrators with a total of 63 victims. Yet, that investigation failed to even scratch the surface. The majority of our witnesses here today will talk about violations of their rights. Sexual assault that occurred outside of that. So it was not covered by operation foul danger. The investigation found that the academy had previously been aware of allegations against 30 of those 43 alleged perpetrators, but that only five had been reported to Law Enforcement at the time. The report from this investigation concluded that the Academy Leadership who oversaw these cases did not, and i quote, instill a culture intolerant of any form of Sexual Misconduct. He did not promote and maintain a climate conducive to reporting incidents of Sexual Assault and they did not adequately investigate alleged offenses as serious criminal matters and hold perpetrators appropriately accountable. This subcommittee opened the bipartisan inquiry soon after operation fouled anchor was disclosed. The inquiry which is ongoing has already found that operation fouled anchor failed to address Sexual Misconduct in a vast number of cases. We have heard accounts from numerous individuals with disturbing personal stories. Gripping, painful stories of Sexual Assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy and in the coast guard. Those include both men and women and they span nearly 5 decades of coast guard alumni and retirees. Four of these brave individuals are here with us today. On behalf of myself and all of my colleagues, i want to thank each of you for being here. I want to thank each of you for your courage and tenacity in coming forward. The stories we are going to hear today show how the Coast Guard Academy fostered that environment where assault and harassment not only persisted, but they fueled the culture of cover up were survivors who did come forward were not treated with the seriousness and respect they deserved. I want to share part of one, just one individual story from a former cadet who is not here today but is one of numerous accounts that the subcommittee has received in recent weeks. We will make some of them part of this record. This woman who is a constituent was assaulted twice in her first year of the academy but did not disclose the us assault is got these results to anyone for decades, including members of her family. I am quoting, the rumors that exist about of the girls that reported assaults were awful and they eventually left the service because they were not taken seriously. In some cases they were blamed. I hit the assaults from everyone that i knew including my family and closest friends. This is a woman who chose the academy, a woman who was committed to Public Service and chose to serve her country. Because of what she experienced she decided to forgo a lifelong career in the coast guard. Our nation is worse off for it. The stories we have heard from survivors that we are going to hear from our Witnesses Today are echoed by the coast guards own data, the 2022 survey of cadets revealed that nearly 30 of female cadets experienced unwanted Sexual Conduct and contact since arriving at the academy. That means that for every four female cadets, one or more has experienced unwanted sexual contacts. That same survey found that only 15 of female survivors reported their assault and half of those who did experienced retaliation. More than half of female cadets surveyed reported experiencing Sexual Harassment in the last year. I am encouraged that the coast guard is ready to take this problem seriously. The coast guard recently released the results of a 90 day accountability and transparency review ordered after operation fouled anchor was disclosed. This includes recommendations aimed at addressing the deeply rooted cultural issues within the coast guard. We support these efforts, and i believe them to be a positive first step. Let me be very clear. There is no accountability in the report. There is no naming of names. There is no reason given for the 3 1 2 year delay between completion of operation fouled anchor and its disclosure to congress. The report was concealed, hidden, and withheld from the United States congress. This 90 day review with no way provides accountability. The coast guards Accountability Task force did not recommend any steps to hold accountable past perpetrators, or generations of coast guard leaders who oversaw and enabled the culture of misconduct to build up and enabled the cover up. Accountability is essential to ensure justice for victims and survivors. There is no deterrence without accountability. Perpetrators must know that their actions will be punished. And that the survivors and victims will be protected. The coast guard also has to do more to fully cooperate with the subcommittee investigation and produce documents we have requested in order to reveal the full scope of the culture of cover up that has existed on their watch. While we are encouraged that the coast guard has produced some records, we have yet to receive a single internal email related to the decision of whether or not to disclose the report on operation fouled anchor. Not one internal email disclosed so far. These critical documents must be provided without further delay. Let me just say finally, while this is primarily focused on the coast guard and specifically the academy, we know that these issues are not limited to the coast guard or the Coast Guard Academy, the culture of cover up has inevitably bled from the ranks of the academy to the coast guard itself. These problems persist in other military services and we need to read all of our military of Sexual Assault and harassment. The coast guard has a long and storied history of service to our nation. It is vital to domestic safety and National Defense. I have been a strong supporter of the coast guard. Strong supporter of the academy. Strong supporter of the museum that will tell the story of the coast guard. The strongest supporters of the coast guard out of be the most determined to rid it of this scorching scourge. I hope that this hearing and the others that will follow it in the investigation will help in that effort. I will turn it over. Thank you. There is not much more i can add to what you have already said. It is beyond unfortunate that we have to have this hearing, but this hearing is imperative. I will just ask that my own Opening Statement be entered into the record. Reading through the testimony, going through the briefing here, it is outrageous what you have had to endure. I appreciate your courage coming forward. It is an obvious lack of leadership. The culture of cover up is pervasive to have allowed this to continue for decades shows the extent of the problem. This committee is not going to solve the problem. It has to be solved in these services themselves and the government agencies. This is the subcommittee investigation. We should be the premier investigatory and oversight body of the senate. I agree with senator blumenthal when he said that the coast guard needs to do more to cooperate. We have gotten some records in response to the general letter we sent. Im glad you mentioned the fact that we have not gotten an email talking about the internal discussion of why they decided to withhold the results of the report for 3 1 2 years. By the way, that was not their decision after 3 1 2 years to give it to congress. Fortunately we had cnn, a news investigation that was inquisitive enough to do the investigative reporting and review it. They did not complete them come clean on their own. This was exposed and they came clean prior to that. What i am hoping he will do, mr. Chairman, is if they do not respond on time, theres no reason they cant start with production documents. Its not that hard to go into the emails and produce some of these documents in terms of what communication resulted in this coverup. So what im saying is they do not produce those documents at least begin the production of those critical emails on the date we have given them i will support you in issuing the subpoena. We will certainly take that action if necessary. I would like to take this moment, i dont get a lot of opportunities to expand a little bit. You talked about the culture of coverup. Thats not just in the coast guard. Its also the department of defense. It is also throughout federal agencies. Mr. Chairman, i have written you some lengthy letters over the weekend. I just want to talk to those issues. One, the letter is requesting the issue of subpoenas to hhs on the fact that they have not been responding to my investigation requests as relates to the coverup of the creation of the for example, Anthony Faucis funding of the wuhan lab. They have provided this to a freedom of information request. Congress is not subject to those reactions. We know that the pages exist. As an accommodation we said we want to see these unredacted. They did not give them to us. But they did allow was over the course of many months they allowed us to go into a secure room and they provide those documents. We could not take copies. We could take notes. We asked for 400 pages. We have been able to review 350. We are down to the last 50 pages. This has been over a year. This is what they have produced to us so far. I dont know about you, but this makes me pretty curious about what hhs is covering up in emails between Anthony Fauci as it relates to his funding of the wuhan lab. I am asking you to issue a subpoena to hhs to give these and other documents i have requested about the function research and coverup in terms of their funding. The other point i want to make, another issue that has been near and dear to my heart is vaccines and the lack of transparency of the agencies as related to vaccine injuries and their analysis of the reports. They had what they called a procedure that they were going to do proportional reporting ratios or in pure goal analysis. We talked about this openly before they got the emergency use authorization on the vaccines. On occasion they say they did not do it then they admitted they have done it. For a couple of years i have been asking them to give me their own analysis of what they are seeing in terms of safety signals from the adverse event reporting system. This is information that the public has a right to know. We fund these agencies. They have these Surveillance Systems on vaccines that the American People in order to have informed consent ought to know. A few little figures here, to date, worldwide deaths associated with the Covid Vaccine were up to 36,726 worldwide. What is notable about that is 8976, 24 are zero, one, two following vaccination. That is a correlation that concerns me. I cannot understand why it is not concerning the fda and cdc. The other problem is it dramatically understates the number of adverse events. Often times i get the push back that we have given billions of these doses so of course any medical intervention is going to have problems. There is risks associated with everything. If you take a look at deaths per million does. It is not that easy because we do not have doses compared to flu vaccine. There have been 25. 5 deaths per million doses of the Covid Vaccine. Compare that to the flu vaccine assuming 70 of the distributed vaccines actually injected, there is. 46 deaths per million doses. That is a 55 fold increase deaths per million doses with the Covid Vaccine versus the flu vaccine. 55 fold increase. This ought to concern the fda and cdc. I have written close to 60 oversight letters out of things i have gotten. Virtually no response on any of these things. It is about time we start to subpoena them at a minimum for their analysis of what the system is telling them. I am asking you to use this subcommittee, the premier oversight Investigatory Committee of the u. S. Senate to start getting these federal Health Agencies to be transparent because there is a culture of coverup not only in the coast guard but throughout federal government that unfortunately we have allowed the oversight to atrophy over time because federal agencies realize we just dont enforce the Constitutional Authority to do so so again switching back to this hearing i truly appreciate you coming forward and telling your stories. They are hard to read and they are hard to listen to but they are important stories for the American People to hear the truth because the only way there is going to be accountability here is through exposure of the truth. The only way you get exposure of the truth is if we get these documents and these agencies stop covering up. Thank you for appearing here. I am not looking forward to the testimony because i have read it. It will be hard to listen to. You should not have had to endure this but i appreciate you coming forward and we will listen to your testimony. Thank you for your comment. As we discussed and i have read your letters from the weekend, we want to work with you and discuss your concerns a little bit later. I am going to introduce the witnesses that will swear you in and hear your testimony of the questions. Afterward i think probably seven grounds, we are very fortunate to have with us first commander jennifer young. To commander graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1981, part of the second class of women to graduate from the academy. Commander young served in the coast guard for more than 20 years where she served in a variety of positions including as the second woman to command a United States combatant. Since retirement, amanda young has held leadership commissions in Higher Education and served as a member of the Advisory Board of women in the coast guard. Commander young is also a leader of coast is thriving together, an independent action team of volunteer coast guard veterans serving survivors of military sexual and physical trauma. Today commander young will share her personal experiences at the Coast Guard Academy and the coast guard. Caitlin e merrill. Caitlin is a former member of the Coast Guard Academy class of 2008. She was honorably discharged from the coast guard after completing one semester. She graduated from Roanoke University with a ba in Political Science and has completed horse work toward a masters in American History from rutgers university. During her studies she served as an intern in the house of representatives and with the Senate Commerce committee. Misses merrill mrs. Merrow now lives in tennessee with her husband and children. Lieutenant melissa mccafferty. Lieutenant mccafferty is a 2011 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy. She served as director of operations and Deputy Director of operations and t