House Education and Workforce Committee Begins Fielding Requests For Release of Information From Congressman Miller’s 2013-14 Interviewees

by Irvin Muchnick

The minority staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has confirmed to Concussion Inc. that they have begun receiving requests for public release of more information on abuses at national sports governing bodies.

The request or requests come from persons who offered testimony in investigators’ interviews in 2013-14. In June 2013, Congressman George Miller, Democrat from California’s 11th district – then ranking minority member of Education and Workforce, and now retired  – announced that he requested a Government Accountability Office report on sexual abuse policies and legislation in amateur sports. This followed a call for Congressional intervention by USA Swimming abuse victim Kelley Davies Currin and by the editorial page of the Washington Post.

Last year Congressman Miller released an exchange of letters with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the FBI’s investigations of USA Swimming. However, sources close to those who spoke to the committee staff say that there are far more allegations than were reflected in Miller’s limited October 22 release to selected news media.

(Concussion Inc.’s coverage of the Miller-FBI exchange is at “Congressman Miller to FBI: ‘Fully Investigate USA Swimming’s Handling of Both Past and Present Cases of Child Sexual Abuse,’” https://concussioninc.net/?p=9560. Additional links to aspects of this story are collected at https://concussioninc.net/?p=9580.)

Education and Workforce general counsel Brian Kennedy, a staffer for Miller’s successor Mark DeSaulnier, today told us the first requester’s request for release of her testimony “is an issue that will be addressed by the Committee, and the Committee will respond directly to the requester or her counsel.”