Within the last two weeks, Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has written two scathing letters to the Department of Justice and the FBI questioning the law enforcement agency’s treatment of whistleblowers and its handling of retaliation complaints.
In 2007, FBI special agent Elizabeth Morris was dismissed after filing an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint against her supervisor and then reporting the illegal activities of her peers, whom she claims still work at the agency.
Two years later, the Department of Justice sided with Ms. Morris, finding her firing to be tainted and retaliatory, but she has yet to be compensated, Mr. Grassley said.
“To date, Ms. Morris apparently has not received any of the relief ordered by [Department’s Civil Rights Division, Complaints Adjudication Office] in 2009,” Mr. Grassley, Iowa Republican, wrote in a letter to Sally Quillian Yates, the acting deputy attorney general at the Justice Department.
An independent review of Ms. Morris’ case by an independent agency found her treatment by the law enforcement agency to be “troubling,” yet the FBI’s own internal reviews of the situation consistently reaffirm its own opinion, Mr. Grassley wrote in the letter, dated March 11 and obtained by The Washington Times.
“That does not instill confidence that the FBI’s internal appeals processes are capable of rendering an independent and objective judgment,” Mr. Grassley wrote, pushing Ms. Yates to explain what she’s done to ensure Ms. Morris’ case is handled by the FBI in accordance with the Justice Department’s own ruling.
In what may be another instance of FBI whistleblower retaliation, after a member within the FBI’s surveillance team came forward with allegations of internal nepotism and mismanagement to The Times last week, he was immediately disciplined by his supervisor after the article was published.
The whistleblower told both The Times and Mr. Grassley’s office that his supervisor called him March 4 to ask him about his use of a government-issued vehicle, and then pulled the whistleblower from street surveillance duty without explanation. The whistleblower currently reports to the office every day, with no work assigned to him.
“Based on my 30-year experience of working with whistleblowers, such ’idling’ of agents and sudden scrutiny of previously sanctioned conduct are hallmarks of retaliation at the FBI,” Mr. Grassley wrote in a March 4 letter to Valerie Parlave, the executive assistant director for human resources at the FBI.
“Whistleblowers are some of the most patriotic people I know — men and women who labor, often anonymously, to let Congress and the American people know when the Government isn’t working so we can fix it,” Mr. Grassley said. “As such, it would be prudent for you to remind FBI management about the value of protected disclosures to Congress and/or Inspectors General in accordance with the whistleblower protection laws.”
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to The Washington Times for comment.
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said the agency is “in receipt of the letter and will respond accordingly.”
• Kelly Riddell can be reached at kriddell@washingtontimes.com.
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