A bipartisan group of lawmakers from both the U.S. House and Senate sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting a new review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) whistleblower protection rules.
U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gary Peters (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and U.S. Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Chairwoman of House Oversight and Reform Committee, and Jackie Speier (D-CA) asked the GAO to investigate numerous reports of the FBI engaging in retaliation against whistleblowers.
The FBI has a long history of retaliating against whistleblowers with multiple different strategies and methods, including loss of security clearance and blacklisting.
Lawmakers claim that the letter is a response to the lack of action on the part of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) after Congress enacted recommendations based on a 2015 GAO report on “the weaknesses of statutory protections for whistleblowers from the FBI and the failures of the FBI and the DOJ to effectively administer them.” The letter claims that the DOJ has “not promulgated regulations to implement Congress’ changes.” To this day, FBI employees still have no recourse to appeal claims after they have been settled inside the FBI, and do not have rights to an...
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