Whistleblower: 665 left FBI over misconduct in two decades

WASHINGTON >> A U.S. senator is pressing the FBI for more information after a whistleblower alleged that an internal review found 665 FBI personnel have resigned or retired to avoid accountability in misconduct probes over the past two decades.

The whistleblower told the office of Iowa Sen.

Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, that the Justice Department launched the review of the FBI’s disciplinary database in 2020 following an Associated Press investigation into sexual misconduct allegations involving at least six senior FBI officials.

The follow-up review found 665 FBI employees, including 45 senior-level officials, resigned or retired between 2004 and 2020 following a misconduct probe but before a final disciplinary letter could be issued, according to a letter this week from Grassley to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

It was not clear how many of those cases involved sexual misconduct. Grassley’s office, which declined to make the whistleblower or underlying documents available to protect the person’s identity, said in its letter it was still seeking that information but also characterized that number as possibly being in the “hundreds.”

“It’s been alleged to my office that the data involved an element of sexual misconduct, which comports with the purpose of the ... review that was done because of the Associated Press article,” Grassley wrote in his letter that was first shared with the AP. “The committee welcomes any clarity the Justice Department is able to provide.”

Asked for its response, the FBI told AP it intended to respond to the oversight committee first. It declined to comment specifically on the whistleblower’s allegation or to provide its own tally of disciplinary cases and how many of them involved sexual misconduct.

It instead issued a statement saying it has a zerotolerance policy toward sexual harassment. “The FBI looks critically at ourselves and will continue to make improvements. The bottom line is, employees who commit gross misconduct and sexual harassment have no place in the FBI,” it said.

The AP investigation in December 2020 identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the prior five years ranging from unwanted touching and advances to coercion.