Reviewing the Background of the New George Gibney Documents Just Released by the U.S. Government

by Irvin Muchnick

Concussion Inc. is preparing for full public release the additional documents handed over by the United States government from the records of disgraced former Irish Olympic swim coach George Gibney, under the terms of the settlement of the government’s appeal of the federal court ruling in our favor under the Freedom of Information Act. Here is the full background.

July 1, 2015     My FOIA lawsuit is filed after the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had responded to my administrative request by releasing four pages of the Gibney file and withholding 102 others.

February 24, 2016     Judge Charles R. Breyer orders the government to produce an improved explanation of withheld documents and their claims to privacy exemptions under FOIA — known as a Vaughn Index.

April 12, 2016     In response to the court order, the government filed a Supplemental Vaughn Index and Redacted Documents. The material is viewable at http://muchnick.net/gibneysuppvaughnindex.pdf.

Irish legislator Maureen O’Sullivan writes to Congresswoman Jackie Speier of California: ““The documents continue to raise troubling questions, the answers to which might spur the Irish government to seek Gibney’s extradition and to prosecute him — both on charges that were abandoned on dubious technical grounds years ago, and on new ones that have emerged. At least one case, in which Gibney raped and impregnated a teen swimmer in his charge during a training trip, occurred on American soil. A 1998 Irish government commission, headed by one of our most distinguished justices, found that the allegations against Gibney were true and the victims were ‘vindicated.’ Until he is brought to justice, however, there is no true vindication under law.”

Speier tells O’Sullivan she will continue to “monitor” the FOIA case “and look for ways to constructively engage in this ongoing legal process.”

October 26, 2016     In the final hearing in the FOIA case, Judge Breyer questions the process by which Gibney was denied citizenship following his 2010 application, in which he withheld the information that he had been indicted in Ireland for sex crimes. “We are not a refuge for pedophiles,” Breyer says. The full transcript of the hearing is at http://muchnick.net/breyertranscript.pdf.

December 6, 2016     Ruling “(largely) in Muchnick’s favor,” Judge Breyer orders the government to release specified additional documents from the Gibney file.

February 3, 2017     The government appeals the district court ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

November 29, 2017     Concussion Inc. streams video from a 2006 report about Gibney from Prime Time on Ireland’s RTÉ television network. The video, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RyxMTx8Rnk&t=303s, shows that Gibney has been under watch by local law enforcement agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation during his time in this country.

December 12, 2017     The FOIA case settles. Key provisions include the government’s agreement to verify Judge Breyer’s statement that the government decided that Gibney’s failed citizenship application was not grounds for removal from the country; to specify the chronology of the items on the Supplemental Vaughn Index; and to release additional material related to Gibney’s original 1992 visa application.

December 14, 2017     On the floor of Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland), the deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, tells O’Sullivan, “I expect new material or evidence may come into the public domain.We will have to see where that takes us as regards the investigations of An Garda Síochána.”

NEXT AT CONCUSSION INC.: The new documents

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