By: Dan Meyer, Esq. and Jennifer Wlodarczyk, Esq.
Both federal employment law and its subdiscipline of whistleblower protection have undergone quiet yet significant change in the last decade, regardless of which political party controls Congress and the White House. From a highwater mark of concern for civil liberties and civil rights beginning in the Lyndon Johnson Administration and ending at 9/11, the team running Washington, D.C., has slowly retreated to norms more protective of the status quo. “Change” is not something promoted to the extent it was previously.
Whistleblower laws, which borrow heavily from Title VII, have been in retreat, with some notable counterattacks, since Secretary Hazel O’Leary’s great moment in supporting Energy Department whistleblowing in the early 1990s. The 1990s experience taught both political parties that whistleblowers could and would be weaponized. The bipartisan consensus supporting transparency and candor so prevalent on Capitol Hill, in particular, during the 1980s, morphed into disinformation campaigns, “fake news,” and social media vectoring. The coverage of Benghazi was an important turning point, being raised as an issue in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
The Merit Systems Protection Board (“MSPB” or “Board”), too, is modifying previous Board decision-making to restrain whistleblower laws. It is not a popular opinion; however, it is undeniable that “social order” and “control” are what the Washington elite now...
Unfortunately, Gregg Phillips’ claims that he was twice teleported from one place to another aren’t the biggest problems for this top government official with a long history of shady deals, charit...