CIA documents reveal agents repeatedly not prosecuted for sex crimes involving minors

A new report from Buzzfeed News has brought forth never before seen documents that show a pattern of child sexual abuse committed by Central Intelligence Agency employees not being prosecuted.

The lengthy report reveals that at least ten CIA employees committed in sex crimes involving minors, and while most of the cases were referred for prosecution, only one resulted in someone being charged with a crime. The remainder, according to the documents, were sent back to the CIA for internal handling. As Buzzfeed News reports, as opposed to other agencies such as the DHS and DEA, the CIA "resists prosecution of its staff for fear the cases will reveal state secrets."

According to the report, in one case an employee admitted to using a government laptop to view material involving the sexual abuse of girls as young as ten-years-old. The employee is said to have had a history of viewing such content, and while he did apologize, he claimed "he did not understand that it was a violation of agency policy to access child pornography until he took the Agency Information Security Course." Despite the aforementioned confession, his computers showed no such images, and thus he was not prosecuted.

The report appears to show that the only times prosecution was sought or brought upon employees was when the sexual abuse occurred in conjunction with the individual possessing classified agency information.

Buzzfeed News obtained the documents from the CIA's Office of the Inspector General via several public records requests and three Freedom of Information Act lawsuits dating back to 2012. While heavily redacted, the more than 3,000 pages reveal important information regarding the internal goings on at the CIA between 2004 and 2019.