Political | Process

The monthslong inquiry analyzed evidence and the outcome “reflects the recommendation of experienced prosecutors,” the department said in a written statement.

“This does not in any way reflect a view that the investigation of Nassar was handled as it should have been, nor in any way reflects approval or disregard of the conduct of the former agents,” it added.

Victims had been furious over the decision not to prosecute Jay Abbott and Michael Langeman, the two agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Indianapolis field office, whose actions in 2015 and 2016 drew the most blame in a July report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

Senators had also criticized the lack of a prosecution during a hearing last year where they heard wrenching testimony from four of the star gymnasts initially identified as potential victims of the doctor: Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman.

Mr. Abbott, then the special agent in charge of the office, has retired. The FBI last year fired Mr. Langeman, then a supervisory special agent, in the wake of the inspector general’s report that concluded that the men hadn’t taken seriously the complaint brought to them by USA Gymnastics officials in late July 2015.

Nassar was allowed to quietly leave his role as doctor to the women’s national team after the FBI report, but continued to see other patients for more than a year—during which time some of those women and girls have said they were also sexually assaulted under the guise of medical treatment.

Nassar was publicly accused of assault in the fall of 2016, and by early 2018 had been sentenced to an effective life sentence in prison on sexual-abuse and child-pornography charges.

It is rare for the Justice Department to review its decision-making in a case that was closed without criminal charges. In announcing the review in October, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the agency could re-examine the case because new evidence had come to light, though she didn’t elaborate.

Agents were confused about whether there was a federal crime to investigate, or whether it would fall under their jurisdiction in Indianapolis, the watchdog’s report found.

They didn’t document the meeting with USA Gymnastics, or the receipt of evidence in the form of a thumb drive in which Nassar described his procedures in graphic terms and in troubling language.