November 23, 2021. Earlier this month, a group of Congressional oversight leaders wrote a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), requesting a review of the protections granted to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) whistleblowers. “Father of the modern False Claims Act” Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) led Congresswomen Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) along with Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and Rob Portman (R-OH) in querying the GAO as to why FBI employees continue to face retaliation for whistleblowing as well as lack an independent appeals process. While Congress enacted the GAO’s recommendations within a year of the 2015 report on the state of FBI whistleblower protections, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has yet to promulgate regulations to the same effect almost seven years later. Two major pain points which DOJ regulations could resolve include more specificity as to whom an FBI whistleblower should report wrongdoing and protections against retaliation.
In their letter to GAO, the congressional oversight leaders named several examples of FBI whistleblowers who were terminated for reporting fraud. After jumping through multiple hoops and attempting to navigate the FBI’s “opaque internal rules,” some of these whistleblowers were able to appeal to have their position reinstated, only to have their security clearance revoked, effectively barring them from doing their jobs. As Grassley and others wrote, “These extensive issues with the FBI’s...
According to a BBC undercover investigation, unregulated immigration advisors are allegedly encouraging people to make false claims of domestic abuse to secure their right to stay in the UK. Right...