by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News June 4, 2024
An FBI whistleblower who was suspended after forwarding information about the FBI's presence at the Jan. 6 protest has been awarded his full back pay and benefits and had his security clearance restored.
Marcus Allen said on Tuesday that he had voluntarily resigned under a settlement agreement ⁷with the FBI that includes full restoration of his pay and benefits for the entire 27 months of his suspension by the bureau.
“It’s been a difficult couple of years, and I am truly grateful for my friends and family who helped us through this. While I feel vindicated now in getting back my security clearance, it is sad that in the country I fought for as a Marine, the FBI was allowed to lie about my loyalty to the U.S. for two years,” Mr. Allen said in a statement. “Unless there is accountability, it will keep happening to others. Better oversight and changes to security clearance laws are key to stop abuses suffered by whistleblowers like me.”
Allen was one of three whistleblowers to testify on May 18, 2023 before the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
Allen, an FBI intel analyst, allegedly was retaliated against for forwarding information that called into question FBI Director Christopher Wray‘s November 2022 testimony to the Senate about whether informants had infiltrated groups protesting on Jan. 6.
When Wray was asked whether the FBI had confidential human sources at the Capitol, he said, “I have to be very careful about what I can say — about when we do and do not and where we have and have not used confidential human sources.”
“But to the extent that there’s a suggestion, for example, that the FBI‘s confidential human sources or FBI employees in some way instigated or orchestrated January 6, that’s categorically false,” he said.
Wray later added, “You should not read anything into my decision not to share anything on confidential human sources” after he did not outright dismiss a question of whether the FBI had those sources dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Allen, a former Marine and FBI staff operations specialist, told the subcommittee about his experience with the FBI’s politicization, particularly its attempts to destroy the lives and careers of those within its ranks with dissenting views. As part of his position, Allen was tasked with providing situational awareness and information regarding the Jan. 6 protest. After submitting information to his superiors and others that questioned “the narrative” of Jan. 6, however, Allen was accused of pushing “conspiratorial views” and “unreliable information.”
The FBI subsequently suspended Allen in January 2022 and questioned his allegiance to the United States.
According to Allen, it wasn’t until five months later, after a congressional member “made statements indicating the FBI was conducting a purge of employees with conservative viewpoints,” did the FBI reach out seeking an interview. Allen claims his security clearance was revoked after he filed his whistleblower complaint.
“It has been more than a year since the FBI took my paycheck from me. My family and I have been surviving on early withdrawals from our retirement accounts while the FBI has ignored my request for approval to obtain outside employment during the review of my security clearance,” Allen said. “We have lost our federal health insurance coverage. There is apparently no end in sight.”
Allen has been represented by Empower Oversight and the American Center for Law and Justice.
Empower Oversight said the FBI “totally capitulated,” and the attorney group is urging Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz to release the facts found in its inquiry, “given that the FBI did a 180 after 27 months on the verge of a final [Office of Inspector General] report.”
In a letter sent to Horowitz, Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt wrote, “For 27 months, Mr. Allen and his family had to survive on early withdrawals from their retirement accounts in order to continue administratively challenging the FBI’s improper revocation of his security clearance.”
He continued, “For 13 of those months Mr. Allen also waited on your office to complete and report on its investigation into the FBI’s abuse of the security clearance process to retaliate against him.”
“Although he also agreed to withdraw his complaints to your office and is no longer employed with the bureau, Mr. Allen believes that the public and the FBI’s oversight committees in Congress must learn the facts discovered during your extensive inquiry,” Mr. Leavitt wrote.
“The FBI’s decision to reinstate his clearance occurred before your office reported on the findings of its investigation, but that should not be an excuse to sweep it all under the rug.”
Leavitt stressed that FBI whistleblowers shouldn’t have to choose between feeding their families and fighting for their right to due process, while being free from retaliation for protected disclosures.
“Until there is sunlight and accountability for the FBI’s abuses in this case, the chilling effect on future whistleblowing at the FBI cannot be overstated,” he wrote.
Horowitz faulted the DOJ for not providing an inspector general appeal process for employees whose security clearances are suspended for more than one year and who say an agency is retaliating against them.
Horowitz four recommendations to address the problems:
• Let employees file a retaliation claim with the inspector general’s office when a security clearance review or suspension lasts longer than one year.
• Ensure that employees are notified in writing of their right to file a retaliation claim with the inspector general’s office when a security clearance review or suspension lasts longer than one year.
• Ensure that employees whose security clearance has been suspended, revoked or denied and who have made retaliation claims have an opportunity to “retain their government employment status” during a security investigation.
• Implement a process to “make every effort to resolve suspension cases as expeditiously as circumstances permit.”
FBI settles with whistleblower on presence of confidential informants on Jan. 6 added by Editor Two on June 4, 2024
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