Federal Manager's Daily Report

The Justice Department IG has recommended that the FBI strengthen the training provided to its supervisors and managers to ensure that they understand that communications by FBI employees to offices or officials outside of the chain of command may be protected whistleblowing disclosures, and that retaliating against employees for making such disclosures violates that law.

The IG made that “procedural reform recommendation” after investigating a whistleblower retaliation complaint in which the IG substantiated that complaint and further concluded that the “training provided by the FBI to its supervisors and managers does not contain sufficient information concerning identifying protected disclosures and responding appropriately from a management perspective.”

“We found that supervisory employees in several FBI offices failed to understand that allegations of wrongdoing by a subordinate employee were potential protected disclosures under whistleblower law. We also found that supervisory employees failed to respond appropriately to these protected disclosures because the supervisory employees took personnel actions against the employee for failing to follow the chain of command when the employee communicated directly with a high-level supervisor,” it said.

Whistleblower law operates somewhat differently for FBI employees than for federal employees in general, by specifying fewer channels through which disclosures can be made and be protected. One of those is “to a supervisor in the direct chain of command of the employee, up to and including the head of the employing agency.” That “does not require the employee to first report the allegations to his or her immediate supervisor,” the IG added.