Senator Feinstein Leads Congressional Group Assisting Concussion Inc. in FOIA Request For Former Irish Coach George Gibney’s U.S. Immigration Records

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California is leading the group of three members of Congress whom Concussion Inc. solicited for help with a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for the visa and green card files on Florida resident George Gibney, a virtual-fugitive retired Irish swimming coach.

I had asked for assistance from Feinstein (who, based on our reporting, has expressed keen interest in an upcoming Government Accountability Office probe of sexual abuse in national amateur sports programs); from Congresswoman Jackie Speier (who represents California’s 14th District and has assumed leadership of this issue from retired Congressman George Miller); and from Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (Miller’s successor from California’s 11th District and on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce).

On behalf of all three, Speier’s Washington-based press assistant, James Pollack, told us today, “Senator Feinstein’s office is taking lead on your FOIA request.” Tom Mentzer, Feinstein’s communications director, confirmed this.

Yesterday, after first rejecting our FOIA request and then reinstating it in letters issued five days apart, USCIS listed the matter as “number 125 of 139 pending requests” on its “Track 2,” or “complex,” FOIA tasks. Today it is “number 126 of 148 pending requests” on Track 2.

As the FOIA resolution plays out, we will be publishing more detail on the timeline of Gibney events and movements from country to country, and from state to state within the U.S.

Sources who have been following the Gibney story for many years tell us that a 43-year-old woman who died in Ireland last December was not the victim of Gibney’s 1991 rape in a Florida hotel room. She was, however, a former Irish swimmer and one of Gibney’s many sexual abuse victims.