The FBI whistleblower Marcus Allen proclaimed victory Tuesday after the bureau restored his security clearance plus full back pay and benefits Friday.

Mr. Allen voluntarily resigned under a settlement agreement with 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.”

Mr. 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 Mr. 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.”

Mr. Leavitt noted that Mr. Allen, while waiting for the IG’s office to complete its work and for the FBI to consider the appeal of his clearance revocation, the bureau denied his request to accept other employment and argued that his family could not accept charitable donations from the public because he was technically still subject to gift rules— although he had no pay and no official duties for more than two years.

“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.”

Mr. 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.

The Washington Times reached out to the FBI for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Several FBI whistleblowers, including Mr. Allen, testified before House lawmakers last year about being punished by having their security clearances and pay revoked.

Mr. Horowitz faulted the Justice Department 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.

According to the inspector general’s office, federal law requires government agencies to establish a security clearance review process that “permit[s] … individuals [with a retaliation claim] to retain their government employment status while [the security clearance review] is pending.”

According to the inspector general’s review, the Justice Department policy also doesn’t restrict or provide guidance on how long an employee can be suspended indefinitely without pay while the security review process is pending.

Mr. Horowitz said the Justice Department doesn’t consider “any practicable alternatives to indefinite suspension without pay during a security investigation for employees.”

He made 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.”

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who also leads the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, said the panels received information that a senior official at the FBI’s Security Division, also called SecD, recommended opening a case against Mr. Allen, based on informal conversations the individual had with bureau employees in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Mr. Jordan said the committee learned that the official was aware of concerns from within SecD that the FBI wasn’t providing employees with due process during the security clearance investigations.

Mr. Allen had his security clearance suspended after the bureau accused him of having conspiratorial views about the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol and of sympathizing with criminal conduct.

According to a November 2023 protected whistleblower disclosure sent by a SecD employee to lawmakers, Senior SecD officials Dena Perkins and Jeffrey Veltri launched an investigation against Mr. Allen because he emailed several news items within his office related to former President Donald Trump that were deemed conspiratorial.

However, the executives in Mr. Allen’s Charlotte field office were not pushing for him to lose his security clearance or even have an administrative misconduct charge leveled against him.

The Charlotte field office planned to handle the matter by having Mr. Allen transferred from working in Domestic Terrorism to another branch within the field office.

The investigation into Mr. Allen continued despite SecD not finding any anti-American issues about Mr. Allen, initially, the disclosure says.

According to the disclosure, SecD concluded Mr. Allen was sympathetic to conservative viewpoints when he performed two background checks on subjects with whom he found no glaring issues. However, SecD investigators did subsequent checks and found information that they said was sympathetic to right-wing ideologies.

“There was no indication that Allen had actually ever seen the information. However, Perkins and Veltri had decided that Allen had hidden the information because he was sympathetic to anti-American conservative groups,” the protected disclosure said.

The disclosure also says a senior SecD employee challenged Ms. Perkins about her deeming that Mr. Allen was anti-American and told her that she couldn’t just make things up about a Marine who had fought in combat. Ms. Perkins responded by having that SecD employee transferred to a “do nothing” job until he left SecD.

Another SecD employee also complained to Ms. Perkins about her treatment of Mr. Allen, but she had her mind made up and Mr. Allen had his security clearance revoked, according to the whistleblower disclosure.

In a series of exclusive reports, The Washington Times detailed several cases of FBI whistleblowers who said bureau officials retaliated against them or punished them for political views by revoking security clearances, resulting in their suspension without pay.

• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.