WASHINGTON – Today Empower Oversight announced its representation of a recently retired Secret Service special agent in his whistleblower retaliation case against the agency. The case is before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, where it was recently remanded for a hearing on the merits.
In early 2018 the Secret Service whistleblower disclosed to his chain of command that a Secret Service manager whose son (a so-called “legacy” applicant) failed a polygraph examination as part of the hiring process discussed with the whistleblower’s supervisor readministering the polygraph examination, which is against standard Secret Service protocol. A congressional report Empower Oversight president Tristan Leavitt co-authored in 2015 found the Secret Service was perceived by many to give legacy employees special treatment.
The whistleblower’s case brings to light the Secret Service’s overall lowering of standards for applicants. A Protective Mission Panel appointed by the Department of Homeland Security in 2014 found “more than half of applicants fail the polygraph and are unable to receive the necessary security clearances.” The Secret Service’s Security Clearance Division Director told House investigators that in response, agency leadership pushed to “cut corners” and “hire, hire, hire,” which had a detrimental effect on the Secret Service’s ability to minimize risks to national security.
In apparent retaliation for the internal whistleblower disclosures Empower Oversight’s client made, the Secret Service reprimanded him for asking polygraph questions to demonstrate whether an applicant provided false information on the application for a security clearance (Standard Form 86 or “SF-86”) about their drug use. The Secret Service has repeatedly lowered its standards regarding drug use by applicants, and Secret Service security clearance adjudicators have inappropriately been given latitude to ignore the government-wide National Security Adjudicative Guidelines. Yet a knowing and willful false statement on the SF-86—including about drug use—can disqualify an applicant and be punished under 18 U.S.C. 1001.