Political Quotes

“Mr. President, for a long time, my friend Senator Leahy and I have worked hard to improve protections for FBI employees who report waste, fraud, and abuse. In March 2015, we held a hearing in the Judiciary Committee examining the FBI whistleblower program. That hearing addressed Department of Justice and Government Accountability Office reviews of the program. Both of those reviews found significant problems. The biggest problem is a longstanding loophole the Department created in its interpretation of the statutory protections for FBI whistleblowers. The Department's rules only protect FBI employees who experience reprisal after they report wrongdoing to a handful of offices or individuals. But those rules do not recognize that almost all whistleblowers first report wrongdoing to their immediate supervisor. Then they go up the chain of command. It is just human nature that, when you spot a problem at work, you tell your boss. FBI policy even encourages employees to report through their chain of command. Yet under the current rules, those same employees have no remedy if they suffer reprisal for disclosing waste, fraud, or abuse to their boss. According to the Government Accountability Office, in 5 years, roughly one-third of FBI reprisal complaints were dismissed because the employee made the report to the ``wrong person'' in their management chain. It doesn't matter if the original disclosure uncovered actual wrongdoing.…”