George Gibney 2019: What Happened Inside the Irish Government in the Immediate Aftermath of the Settlement of Our FOIA Case For Material From the American Immigration File of the Rapist Former Olympic Swimming Coach
George Gibney 2019: December 2017 FOIA Settlement Documented U.S. Government Inaction and Set the Stage For New Action
December 30, 2018U.S. Center for SafeSport’s Deer-in-the-Headlights Founding CEO, Shellie Pfohl, Resigns and Lopes Back to the Bramble
December 31, 2018PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS OF THIS REVIEW SERIES:
- “Fate of the Most Notorious At-Large Sex Criminal in the History of Global Sports (‘The First Named Coach’) Hinges on Pressure of House Democrats on Executive Branch of President Donald Trump (‘Individual-1’),” December 27, 2018, https://concussioninc.net/?p=13507
- “Federal Judge Breyer’s 2016 Decision in the FOIA Case For Department of Homeland Security Records on the Rapist Former Irish Olympic Swimming Coach,” December 29, 2018, https://concussioninc.net/?p=13512
- “December 2017 Settlement Documented U.S. Government Inaction and Set the Stage For New Action,” December 29, 2018, https://concussioninc.net/?p=13516
by Irvin Muchnick
In the previous installment of this review series, Concussion Inc. again chronicled the December 11, 2017, settlement of my Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. I had filed the case the year before; a senior federal judge, Charles R. Breyer (brother of Supreme Court Stephen Breyer), had ruled “(largely) in Muchnick’s favor”; and the Justice Department had spent almost all of last year pressing an appeal at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
As usual, the American media ignored the news — a state of affairs that will need to change in 2019. (Down the line, when appropriate, I’ll tell the story of the cowardly major national magazine that invited me to write a comprehensive article about the two-continent hunt for Gibney, then shrugged their shoulders three months later and said never mind.)
But also as usual, the Gibney development made a significant ripple on the Emerald Isle. In a story by reporter Aaron Rogan, the Times of London, Irish edition, immediately reported the FOIA settlement.
More significantly, Maureen O’Sullivan, a member of the Dáil, the principal chamber of the Irish legislature, questioned Simon Coveney, the tánaiste (deputy prime minister). Coveney responded on the floor: “We will note [the newly emerging FOIA case material] with interest and act on it if we can but I am conscious that this may be subject of a future legal action.”
We published the full transcript of the O’Sullivan-Coveney exchange at https://concussioninc.net/?p=12378. The Times also gave us permission to reprint the full texts of reporter Rogan’s two-part coverage, at https://concussioninc.net/?p=12387: “Released files bolster effort to deport Irish swimming coach” (December 13, 2017) and “Government is ‘ready to take action in Gibney case’” (December 15, 2017).
There is a wild card in the George Gibney immigration/prosecution/accountability scenario — his one known sex crime on American soil. In 1991, while on a training trip with a group of Irish swimmers, Gibney raped one of the athletes in a Tampa, Florida, hotel room. Next, more on where things stand in that matter.
(Chronological links to our series, which began January 27, 2015, under the headline “Why Is George Gibney — No. 1 At-Large Pedophile in Global Sports — Living in Florida? And Who Sponsored His Green Card?”: https://concussioninc.net/?p=10942)