WASHINGTON – On the eve of a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing that is expected to further expose the major flaws in the laws prohibiting reprisal against FBI whistleblowers, major whistleblower protection organizations and accountability advocates are calling on Congress to pass legislation that finally creates effective protection for whistleblowers.
In a letter to the committees of jurisdiction in the House of Representatives, the organizations outlined two specific reforms needed to protect FBI whistleblowers.
First, the organizations recommend giving FBI employees the same protections as other Justice Department and federal law enforcement employees. The letter details how the FBI was excluded in 1978 from those whistleblower protections and from statutory prohibitions on nepotism, political coercion, and other harmful personnel practices. The coalition recommends giving the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) jurisdiction to investigate those practices in the FBI like it does in other agencies, and to allow FBI whistleblowers to appeal from OSC to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Second, the organizations recommend overturning or narrowing the Supreme Court case Department of the Navy v. Egan (484 U.S. 518 (1988)) in order to authorize truly independent review of retaliatory security clearance decisions at any non-intelligence community agency. In the letter they write, “We urge Congress to reject the DOJ’s attempt to claim for itself unfettered authority to make unreviewable decisions, regardless of the constitutional rights of its employees. Egan’s reach must at least be limited to ensure that constitutional rights cannot be infringed with impunity.”
The organizations and advocates made the following comments regarding their letter:
“It’s become clear that the FBI’s so-called whistleblower protections are almost meaningless. Retaliation at the FBI is nothing new, but the FBI’s latest method of reprisal has raised the stakes higher than ever. Using clearances as a pretext to violate employees’ constitutional rights should not be tolerated. It puts FBI employees and their families in limbo without pay for years as the FBI tries to grind them down. It’s time for Congress to step up and change these laws, not just for FBI employees but for all Americans entrusted with access to classified information.” – Tristan Leavitt, president, Empower Oversight
“It is imperative that Congress act quickly to ensure meaningful whistleblower protections for heroic whistleblower agents like our clients who are following the law in order to expose some of the worst government corruption we’ve ever seen. Without additional protections, the politicized bureaucracy will continue to weaponize the justice system against innocent Americans with impunity, silencing the only ones who can lawfully expose their abuses. It’s past time to truly protect FBI whistleblowers.” – Jordan Sekulow, executive director, American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ)
“We must protect those men and women of the FBI as our responders to crime but also as its relators. Retaliation is Workplace abuse and can cause as much harm as witnessing violence.” – Jackie Garrick, founder, Whistleblowers of America
“Whistleblowers come in all stripes, and protecting them is a truly non-partisan issue. The federal government has few jobs more critical than protecting U.S. national security, and yet it is precisely those employees who are the most vulnerable to retaliation for calling out misconduct because of outdated concepts about loyalty that live on in the legal framework surrounding security clearances. It is past time for Congress to firmly put its foot down and fix the glaring loopholes the Intelligence Community blasted into due process and whistleblower protection decades ago.” – Kel McClanahan, executive director, National Security Counselors
“The Department of Justice and the FBI are not above the law. Yet, time and again these powerful organizations flaunt any attempt to ensure accountability or transparency. The result has been a bureaucracy run amok, especially at the FBI, with leaders who believe that they can pontificate to the American people about the importance of their jobs while ignoring the clear constitutional constraints on their positions. The time has come for true accountability and real protections for whistleblowers to help rein in the out-of-control bureaucracy that the FBI has become.” — Jesse Binnall, founding partner, Binnall Law Group
To see full letter, click here.
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