After a number of government officials expressed concern with the FBI’s treatment of whistleblowers, Senators on the Judiciary Committee have scheduled a hearing to look into the issue more closely.
Titled, “Whistleblower Retaliation at the FBI: Improving Protections and Oversight,” the hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, and will feature testimony from a David Maurer, the Department of Justice’s Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues, DOJ Inspector General, Michael Horowtiz, and a long-time advocate for whistleblowers, Stephen Kohn, the executive director of the National Whistleblower Center.
The committee’s chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), scheduled the hearing just days after the Government Accountability Office released a scathing report, exposing a “chilling effect” on whistleblowers at the FBI due to a lack of protections for bureau workers.
GAO found that the DOJ dismissed 71 percent of whistleblower retaliation complaints over the course of a year, with many dismissals a result of misleading information from FBI supervisors that leave conscientious informers vulnerable to retaliation.
Earlier this month, the department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz testified before a House subcommittee, telling lawmakers that the FBI is shirking its transparency obligations, and thwarting two ongoing whistleblower retaliation investigations.
Specifically, Horowitz said, the bureau is withholding documents related to grand jury records, electronic surveillance, and Fair Credit Reporting Act information. The reluctance to hand over documents that the FBI is required to turn over under the Inspector General Act began in 2010, according to Horowtiz.
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel is preparing a memo to determine if the FBI is violating the law by withholding the records from the IG.
Horowtiz warned that stonewalling has delayed retaliation investigations “for several months.”
“That’s a problem in terms of a message to a whistleblower,” he told lawmakers.
Whistleblower advocates have high hopes that the hearing will illuminate an issue that rarely gets attention on the floors of Congress or in the media.
“This hearing will be an eye opener to the internal operations of the FBI,” said Stephen Kohn in a press release about the hearing.
Also testifying at Wednesday’s hearing is FBI Agent Richard Kiper, a current whistleblower, who claims he was retaliated against in 2014 after he identified waste at the bureau.
