Thread by @RealPatrickWebb

BREAKING: The FBI has been illegally abusing the security clearance process by withholding employment in retaliation against whistleblowers, according to IG report.

The FBI has sidelined dozens of whistleblowers by suspending their security clearances for more than a year, according to an inspector general’s report released Tuesday.

This comes despite a top bureau official denying the retaliation in closed-door depositions before Congress, according to transcripts reviewed by The NY Post.

Justice Department watchdog Michael Horowitz revealed in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco that the FBI lacks protections for whistleblowers who claim they are being put on ice in retaliation for going to Congress.

The bureau notably did not provide avenues for whistleblowers to retain employment while their clearances were being reviewed, the five-page missive from Horowitz stated.

oig.justice.gov/sites/default/…

The FBI’s failures left at least 106 agents in without help or protections for an average of almost 18 months each, according to data obtained by the inspector general’s office.

In one reprisal case, Horowitz wrote, a bureau employee was suspended without pay for more than two years and would still be unable to file a retaliation complaint had his office not intervened.

Tristan Leavitt, president of the nonprofit Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research, confirmed that the treatment of one of their clients, FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen, prompted the internal investigation.

“The Justice Department IG today confirmed what we knew all along: the FBI has been illegally abusing the security clearance process to retaliate against whistleblowers,” Leavitt told The Post, “but our client, Marcus Allen, is still waiting for the IG to report on the FBI’s retaliation against him more than a year after we first filed a complaint with that office on his behalf.”

Cases like Allen's and other FBI whistleblowers who were also investigated by the Judiciary Committee last year, forming the substance of another report that concluded the bureau was “broken” and “targeting” agents over their protected disclosures to lawmakers.

Allen, who is still employed without pay or duties, had his security clearance pulled for harboring “conspiratorial views” after he shared open-source news articles with fellow FBI agents that “questioned the FBI’s handling of the violence at the Capitol” on Jan. 6, 2021, the report stated.

FBI special agent Garret O’Boyle and Stephen Friend (@RealStevefriend) also had their clearances suspended indefinitely for making protected disclosures to Congress.

“Friend entered FBI space and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems to an unauthorized removable flash drive,” the letter added. “The FBI then required Mr. Friend to attend a Security Awareness Briefing (SAB) regarding his actions, but he refused to do so.”

The FBI wasn’t the only federal law enforcement agency implicated, with Horowitz citing similar failures at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

The watchdog recommended that federal law enforcement agencies immediately revise policies to protect whistleblowers who have been retaliated against, which is already required under existing statutes.

He also asked for a monthly review process of suspension cases extending 90 days or more, as well as compliance with the DOJ’s existing policy to “make every effort to resolve suspension cases as expeditiously as circumstances permit.”