Nearly a dozen FBI whistleblowers who say they endured retaliation during the Biden administration inked agreements on Monday with the FBI and Justice Department to have their security clearances reinstated and collect back pay.
The 10 whistleblowers and their attorneys have been negotiating their settlement agreements with the Justice Department and FBI to restore their law enforcement credentials and receive compensation for the time they spent indefinitely suspended without pay.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, has long advocated for the whistleblowers and has helped navigate the settlements to their retaliation complaints.
“Whistleblowers risk it all for the sake of simply telling the truth. These 10 whistleblowers’ brave actions were met with intense bureaucratic blowback that caused severe financial and emotional hardship. Their lives were upended for years, but I never stopped fighting until things were made right,” Mr. Grassley said.
“I appreciate Attorney General [Pam] Bondi, Deputy Attorney General [Todd] Blanche, Director [Kash] Patel and Deputy Director [Dan] Bongino’s unyielding efforts to prioritize accountability and bring closure to these whistleblowers’ cases,” he said. “My door remains open to all whistleblowers, and I’ll continue to protect and defend them from retaliation. There is more work to be done.”
Among the FBI whistleblowers previously identified as in the process of negotiating settlements are: Stephen Friend, Garret O’Boyle, Monica Shillingburg, Zachary Schoffstall and Michael Zummer.
Several of the whistleblowers are represented by the whistleblower legal defense group Empower Oversight.
Empower Oversight applauded the resolution of eight whistleblower retaliation cases, which now resolves all 10 long-standing client disputes with the FBI, as outlined in the organization’s March 5 letter to the FBI General Counsel.
The settlements represent more than 12 years of suspended days corrected by these agreements.
“For each of these cases where whistleblowers finally received at least some measure of justice for the retaliation they faced just for telling the truth about wrongdoing, there are many more who still need a remedy. … There are more who still have no remedy and no justice. The work to combat weaponization and whistleblower retaliation is far from over,” Empower Oversight Founder Jason Foster and President Tristan Leavitt wrote in a letter to Mr. Grassley.
Each of the agreements differs slightly depending on each employee’s particular situation, case, and circumstances. Of these eight settlement agreements:
None required any resignations as a condition of the agreement.
Four involve or facilitate voluntary retirements. All include lump sum payments for damages.
Four require full restoration of back pay and benefits to be calculated according to the Back Pay Act, which requires putting federal employees in the same financial position they would have been had they not been subjected to an “unjustified or unwarranted personnel action.”
This requires that employees receive interest on all back pay, restored leave, and replaced Thrift Savings Plan contributions — including the agency match and lost investment earnings.
These agreements also require all back pay and benefits to be calculated and paid within 30 days of the employee returning to work and providing all necessary information.
Three require the FBI to return the employees to duty, including Mr. Friend, Mr. O’Boyle and Mr. Schoffstall.
Mr. O’Boyle said he is grateful to finally have a “measure of resolution in my case.”
“This settlement closes a painful chapter for my family and I, but it does not erase the years of retaliation, reputational harm, and financial hardship that we endured simply because I told the truth,” Mr. O’Boyle said in a statement to The Washington Times.
He thanked Mr. Grassley and his attorneys at Empower Oversight, the American Center for Law and Justice and the Binnall Law Group.
“They fought against overwhelming odds to ensure my voice was heard. Their steadfast support, legal guidance, and public defense of my rights is not something I have taken for granted, and not something commonly seen in our era,” he said. “Without these courageous allies, I would not have been able to withstand the government’s pressure or continue this fight for justice.”
Four other FBI employees also reached agreements with the bureau, but their names are being withheld by their attorneys and the Justice Department.
One settlement, with Marcus Allen, was concluded under the Biden administration. It forced Mr. Allen to resign, but the FBI had still not fully paid him nearly a year afterward, which has since been remedied.
A second settlement was finalized on Aug. 1, 2025. The remaining eight were completed over the course of the last two weeks.
Mr. Allen, Mr. Friend and Mr. O’Boyle testified in 2023 before the House Judiciary Committee’s panel on government weaponization about how the FBI retaliated against them when they reported concerns about the bureau to outside authorities, which included Congress.
Mr. Allen’s security clearance was revoked in May 2023 after he challenged FBI Director Christopher A. Wray’s March 2021 testimony about the presence of undercover federal law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
Mr. Allen said he and his family were financially destroyed by the FBI because he could not gain employment elsewhere or accept charitable contributions.
Mr. O’Boyle was indefinitely suspended without pay following a surprise interview at his new duty station in Virginia in September 2022.
He had just finished a cross-country move with his family, which included a newborn, when his security clearance was suddenly suspended, leaving the family homeless and without income, according to Mr. O’Boyle.
Protected whistleblower disclosures made by Mr. O’Boyle from 2020 to 2022 included:
• FBI COVID-19 policies and violations of civil rights
• Politicized investigations
• Misuse of resources, including inflated domestic terrorism case counts
• Improper targeting of religious and pro-life individuals
• Retaliation against employees expressing constitutionally protected views
The FBI’s Security Division, known as SecD, suspended and ultimately revoked Mr. O’Boyle’s clearance in direct violation of Presidential Policy Directive 19 (PPD-19) and federal whistleblower protections, according to Mr. O’Boyle.
The bureau also suspended him without pay after the agency accused him of leaking information to the media. Mr. O’Boyle disputed the allegation.
The bureau suspended Mr. Friend without pay and revoked his security clearance in 2021 after he went public about the FBI’s politicization and harsh tactics in Jan. 6 cases, including the use of SWAT operators for misdemeanor arrests of compliant targets.
The FBI said his security clearance was suspended because he “entered FBI space [his office] and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems [an employee handbook and guidelines for employee disciplinary procedures] to an unauthorized removable flash drive.”
Like all of the suspended whistleblowers, Mr. Friend was unable to find outside employment as he sought to appeal his indefinite suspended security clearance.
In March, Empower Oversight said in a letter to the FBI’s new general counsel, Samuel Ramer, that the agency’s retaliatory actions against their clients “were in reprisal for protected whistleblowing and or improper targeting because of their political beliefs.”
A common theme among the whistleblowers is allegations that the FBI indefinitely postponed the appeal process and put financial pressure on the agents by suspending their pay and blocking their ability to earn a living any other way.
Agents who are suspended are prohibited from taking jobs outside the FBI without resigning, and thereby giving up their appeal.
The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General issued a memo in May 2024 saying that DOJ policy does not provide adequate whistleblower protections for employees with security clearances.
The OIG’s review found evidence that security clearances had been suspended in retaliation for protected whistleblower action. The OIG also expressed concern that DOJ and FBI policy did not require supervisors to consider alternatives to indefinite, unpaid suspension during a security investigation.
This practice puts financial pressures on employees and can contradict federal law, which states that employees with a retaliation claim should, to the extent practicable, retain their employment status.
Last month, Mr. Grassley, co-founder and co-chair of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus, introduced bipartisan legislation with Sen. Gary Peters, Michigan Democrat, to strengthen FBI whistleblower protections.
The legislation would provide FBI employees with whistleblower protections established by the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act and its subsequent amendments, protections that agents have long been denied.
It would also give FBI employees added protections, such as speeding up challenges to revoked security clearances and prohibiting supervisors from coercing employees to engage in political activity.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.