Multiple FBI agents have expressed frustration with current whistleblower protections in the department, which they feel leave them vulnerable, making them reluctant to testify, The Daily Caller reports.
"It's a question of basic credibility — Congress, the executive, and oversight are not seen to have any gravitas or seriousness. The inmates have been running the asylum and they don't respect, much less fear, their overseers. We know we'll be hung out to dry," one FBI special agent said in a transcript shared with the Daily Caller.
"And don't get me wrong, there are still a few good people scattered about, but main Justice and the bureaucrats are running the show, want to run out the clock on this administration, and keep the status quo."
A former White House official who's stayed in contact with at least two FBI agents said that they're "hunkering down because they see good people being thrown to the dogs for speaking out and speaking out does nothing to solve the problems," and that he thinks "Congress and DOJ are so weak and clueless and can't be trusted to follow through."
A second special agent described being subpoenaed as "a great opportunity for senior or [soon to be retiring] guys, not for someone like me. It'd be suicide. I hate to say it, but neither the judiciary nor the executive branch is wielding any kind of effective oversight right now, and the top managers know it."
The agent added, "You still have a ton of bad people in place. Unless that changes, and I haven't seen any degree of seriousness on the part of ranking members nor staffers, I'm not meeting with anyone nor willing to be subpoenaed. I'm not coming forward until they get their act together. Right now, it'd be sacrificing a career for cheap political points."
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, defended the Whistleblower Protection Act that he championed in a comment to the Daily Caller.
"I've worked hard to strengthen legal protections, especially for FBI employees. You have a right to cooperate with Congressional inquiries, just as you have a right to cooperate with the Inspector General. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying."
However, one agent told the Daily Caller in an email that after coming forward as a whistleblower in 2013, he experienced "personal humiliation, stress-related illnesses, and a huge financial loss, requiring my wife (who had undergone two cancer surgeries) to go to work so we could make ends meet."
He added that the process to investigate the agency's retaliation is "slow by design and at the end of the process they will never be held accountable," while whistleblowers go broke from legal fees.
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