Two-time Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman was recently interviewed by NBC's Savannah Guthrie in regard to the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal. This interview was included in Dateline NBC's hourlong special "Silent No More", which was based solely on the scandal and aired on Sunday, April 22 at 7:00 pm ET.
Raisman is one of more than 260 people, many of whom female gymnasts, who have accused the disgraced former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University physician of sexual assault.
Nassar's sexual assault, which he performed under the guise of medical treatment, went on for roughly two decades before he was finally arrested in December of 2016. He has since been given three lengthy prison sentences that are set to keep him locked up for life, and he is serving his first sentence at United States Penitentiary Tucson in Tucson, Arizona.
However, following the airing of the documentary, which also included interviews with former Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney, Gina Nichols, the mother of gymnast Maggie Nichols, and both Béla and Márta Károlyi, the 23-year-old Needham, Massachusetts native was extremely frustrated.
Furious may actually be a better word. Raisman was furious with what was not shown in the documentary, including something that she stated in the interview and was under the impression would be shown.
Here is what she had to say about the matter on Twitter.
Seeing Raisman upset over something like this is no surprise, and I mean that in an extremely positive way.
Since she revealed publicly this past November that Nassar sexually assaulted her, she has undoubtedly been the most outspoken of Nassar's accusers in terms of holding accountable the institutions that enabled his predatory behavior, including USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, for so long.
Evidently in her interview, Raisman revealed the name of a USA Gymnastics official who she believes was complicit in Nassar's sexual assault. But as you can see by watching the documentary itself, this portion of her interview was completely omitted from the broadcast.
People have speculated that NBC intentionally left this information out so that they could protect their own interests since they own the broadcasting rights for USA Gymnastics, and with that comes Olympic coverage -- and ratings.
Regardless of whether or not that particular speculation is true, Raisman's tweet illustrated that there are, in fact, many questions that have not yet been answered about this scandal and the institutions that enabled it.
The fact that what she said, which has the potential to be extremely significant in both the short run and in the long run, was omitted is very alarming, especially when there were no shortage of other names tossed around throughout the documentary.
It will certainly be interesting to see what her next move is at this point and what will be done with the information that she has.