The U.S. Coast Guard is facing further scrutiny after a recent Government Accountability Office report cited ongoing failures in how the service has reported cases of sexual assault and harassment to Congress since 2022.
The GAO found that in a 2022 report to Congress on this issue, the Coast Guard reported 226 incidents of sexual assault and 88 incidents of sexual harassment.
That report, however, contained only five of the 11 required reporting elements, only partially included four and did not include two, the GAO stated. Some of the required elements of a complaint include victim information; incident details, such as time and location; type of support requested per victim; and any additional evidence.
The Coast Guard also submitted the 2022 report about a year late, according to the GAO.
The GAO also noted that the Coast Guard’s reports covering fiscal years 2023 and 2024 — due on Jan. 15, 2024, and January 15, 2025, respectively — remained unissued as of December 2025.
Additionally, in one 2022 report, the Coast Guard acknowledged that it had not adequately communicated the findings and scope of Operation Fouled Anchor, which was a series of investigations that examined more than 100 separate allegations of sexual assault from 1990 to 2006 at the Coast Guard Academy.
“As a junior officer, if I had failed to produce reports on a timely basis, I would have been fired,” Rucker Krepp, a former Coast Guard officer familiar with the vetting process for sexual assault cases, told Military Times. “So, why has a single admiral not been held accountable for the delay in the reports? That’s a fireable offense.”
Krepp added that officers responsible should face courts martial or have certain operational funds withheld.
A previous report by Navy Times, meanwhile, detailed that many Coast Guard service members did not feel safe or trust in their leadership, according to a 90-day internal review initiated by reports of sexual assault and harassment.
The U.S. Coast Guard subsequently apologized for previously failing to adequately handle cases of sexual assault and harassment at the service’s Connecticut-based academy.
The service also acknowledged at the time that it did not widely disclose its six-year internal investigation into dozens of cases from 1988 to 2006.
Krepp told Military Times that Coast Guard sexual assault survivors are taking actions to speak with congressional lawmakers on the matter.
“It’s not going to be the Coast Guard that holds itself accountable because they’ve shown they can’t do it,” Krepp said. “It’s going to have to be an outside entity — either Congress or the president or the secretary of Homeland Security — who’s going to say, ‘For the need of the service, it’s time to start holding people accountable.’”
GAO issued two recommendations in its recent report. First, it recommended that the Coast Guard ensure that annual sexual assault and sexual harassment reports to Congress address all required elements. Secondly, the report noted that the reports should be issued on time.
The Department of Homeland Security agreed with the recommendations.
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