It has become an entrenched trope, a go-to defense, for the Government Accountability Project and its defenders to claim that GAP “can’t help everybody,” or “they helped me for free,” when its performance as an accountability organization comes under questioning. This line of deflection–this conscious blurring of the line between its functions as lawyers and lobbyists–is so powerful that it survived two different radio shows unquestioned. Until now.

Recently, GAP’s Tom Devine was on the Peter B. Collins show with his client, TSA Whistleblower Robert MacLean, who won a victory in federal court (the same show where Devine and his client displayed poor judgment by adopting the tactics of bureaucratic bullies, and not the first time for Devine). Toward the end of the show, Collins asked Devine to respond to some critiques by DOE Whistleblower Joe Carson:

Peter B. Collins (38:13):

Tom, I’d also like you to react to some information and commentary that I’ve received from Joe Carson. And I- I can’t imagine that you’ve never heard of Joe Carson. He is a profilic writer and he has contacted many agencies and congressional committees and the White House over the years. He is- he describes himself as a successful whistleblower in the Department of Energy, where he is a nuclear engineer, in Tennessee, and he’s been very active on these issues. And his central focus is on the Office of Special Counsel, and the role that it has under the 1978 in protecting whistleblowers.

And he contends that there has been what he calls a “broken covenant” – this longtime failure to enforce these rules, and in particular for the OSC, to exercise its appropriate role in protecting whistleblowers. And he starts with the contention that most federal employees don’t even know about their rights under the Office of Special Counsel. Could you- I’m sure you heard from him, so could you tell me your viewpoint on the issues that he raises?

Here was Devine’s reply (39:29):

I hear from Joe all the time, relentless, and we actually represented him, in some of his earlier victories under whistleblower rights in the Department of Energy. So I’m very familiar with his perspective.

And there have been extensive periods of time where I’ve completely agreed with him about the Office of Special Counsel and in fact our organization tried to get the institution abolished, we thought it was a trojan horse for whistleblowers. I don’t think that he is really fair at giving credit where it was due. Some of the special counsels who really did stick their necks out and worked hard and get effective results protecting whistleblowers.

Probably the area where we’ve really agreed to disagree the most is- Joe has been attacking me for a few years- it used to be a big [unintelligible]- he’s been attacking because I disagree with him that we should sort of delegate the policies on whistleblower protection to the White House Office of Legal Counsel. He thinks that this would straighten things out for whistleblowers, and I’ve just been dubious because it’s the same office that was behind the memos on drones and on legalizing torture and everytime we’ve learned about an opinion they’ve had on whistleblowers it’s been to shrink or abolish whistleblowers rights. So we’ve agreed to disagree on that particular issue.

The Broken Covenant Dodge

Collins (41:00):

And do you share his characterization about what he calls the “broken covenant” that those who occupy the OSC have failed to operate within the law, and you, know, to properly report on cases of the PPP – what is that – the prohibited personnel practices?

Devine (41:22):

Yeah, that’s all the merit system violations. I think you just can’t generalize, Peter. There’s been some of the special counsels who not only broke the covenant, they tried to destroy it. There was a Special Counsel in the eighties named Alex Kozinski who actually taught courses to federal managers how to fire whistleblowers without getting caught by his own investigators. He would tutor them in his office, how to write up the terminations to fire whistleblowers.

Collins:

Is that the Kozinski who’s now a federal judge?

Devine:

He is the chief- the chief judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and if he hadn’t got caught by whistleblowers from the Office of Special Counsel, he’d be on the Supreme Court right now. There were 43 votes against his Ninth Circuit circuit confirmation, because of how he broke that covenant, betraying the trust that he had as a protector of whistleblowers.

Scott Bloch, the Special Counsel under the Bush Administration, his sentencing for whether or not he’d go to jail was postponed yesterday because the evidence had been doctored about why he shouldn’t go to jail, and he was such a horrible Special Counsel that he had to resign after the FBI raided his office, and he was covering up the evidence they were seeking. There have been some people who just- they were magnets for whistleblowers by their own staff at the whistleblower protection agency.

But it’s not fair to generalize. There are some other folks who really made a difference and Joe and other members of the community, they’re observers a lot of times of what happens. I have to deliver results for people whose professional lives are at stake. And I can tell you that, right now, the Office of Special Counsel is working their tails off, and they’re getting results for whistleblowers, and a lot of- their leadership is composed of former free speech activists and employee rights activists, their whole careers. It’s not fair to say that one institution is always good or always bad, that’s just not the way life operates. And right now, we’ve gone from warning whistleblowers not to sabotage themselves by filing complaints with the Office of Special Counsel. We’ve gone from that perspective five years ago to the Office of Special Counsel being the first option to help whistleblowers, and it’s completely just dependent on the results.

Cute. Notice, however, that Devine never really answered the specific question posed by Collins: “do you share his characterization about what he calls the ‘broken covenant’ that those who occupy the OSC have failed to operate within the law, and to properly report on cases of the PPP?”

Instead, Devine claims that “you just can’t generalize” and proceeds to distract with titillating tales of political intrigue (while attempting co-opt the broken covenant term, if not dismissing this author and others as mere observers who aren’t affected by OSC’s failures and who don’t need to deliver results. And hiding once again behind his role as a lawyer to defend his actions as a lobbyist.)

The focus on “results,” however, proves too much. What’s missing in Devine’s answer is any discussion of the law (as in “those who occupy the OSC have failed to operate within the law“).

Here are some hard facts regarding just one prong of Carson’s “broken covenant” theory:

• Carson contends that federal employees do not have an effective way to bring forward concerns (i.e. ”protected disclosures”), particularly classified ones or ones that are otherwise prohibited from public disclosure, despite OSC being the primary mechanism for this, by virtue of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act.
• Since 1989, OSC has received 28 disclosures from whistleblowers within the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and NGIA.
  • Of those, it referred none to the agency heads for internal investigations.
• Since 1989, OSC has received 11,174 disclosures from other executive branch agencies, over which it has whistleblower protection jurisdiction.
  • Of those, 81 were disclosures that were prohibited by law to make publicly (i.e. to the media).
  • Of these 81 prohibited/classified disclosures, 5 were referred to the relevant agencies for internal investigations.
  • Of these 81, only one involved foreign intelligence or counterintelligence information, requiring mandatory referral to the intelligence committees in Congress and the National Security Advisor.

Think about it: since 1989, of the thousands of disclosures OSC has received, only one merited confidential referral to the national security apparatus in Congress and the White House. This is so despite 9/11, the Iraq War lies, illegal torture, warrantless wiretapping, the drone strikes, and, of course, Sibel Edmonds’ explosive allegations. OSC’s failure to be a viable classified disclosure channel has cut across all tenures, all special counsels, and all administrations, including the special counsels over whom Devine weeps. So you can, in fact, generalize, contrary to Devine’s non-answer.

Rebuttal

In the second half of the show, Collins asked Carson and me to come on and provide a reaction to Devine’s interview. You can hear how pervasive the GAP-as-lawyers-not-lobbyists defense is when Collins, acting as devil’s advocate, pushed back against our arguments that GAP has cornered the market as a watchdog organization, by arguing that GAP cannot provide representation to all who seek its help. This is true. However, the critique against GAP is not that they aren’t omnipresent as counselors, but that they fail to use their clout and power as lobbyists responsibly.

For example, when Tom Devine’s role as a lobbyist is criticized, his defenders often downplay his clout (if not invoke their gratitude for his legal assistance – see?). But on Collins’ show, Devine himself proclaimed (at 37:45, first half) that MacLean helped give the entire national security community rights by lobbying Devine, who then got the President to issue PPD 19 (which bizarrely omitted the Office of Special Counsel). Devine cannot be both that powerful and a shrinking violet.

In this interview, Devine both accurately trumpeted his prominent role in whistleblower issues as well as showed how easily he weaves between his roles as lawyer and lobbyist. The two are not the same, and at times may conflict with one another. A discerning whistleblower would be wise to tell the difference.

A look at whistleblower laws of recent decades

In 1978, Congress debated the Civil Service Reform Act extensively. It was a landmark, once-in-a-century effort. Naturally, there would be a lot of coverage. Deliberations in the Senate took 12 days, deliberations in the House took 13 days, and the House-Senate conference took place over at least 6 days, according to records recently discovered in the Library of Congress. Here are some of the mark-up sessions and other documents from those deliberations:

• Serial No. 95-65 (March-May 1978)
• Senate Hearings on S. 2640 (April-May 1978)
• Committee Print No. 95-13 (Apr. 6, 1978)
• Mark-Up Session on S. 2640 (May 22, 1978)
• Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1978 (May 23, 1978)
• House Hearings on Reorganization Plan No. 2 (June 6, 13, 15, 1978)
• Mark-Up Session on S. 2640 (June 8, 1978)
• Mark-Up Session on S. 2640 (June 12, 1978)
• Mark-Up Session on S. 2640 (June 14, 1978) I
• Mark-Up Session on S. 2640 (June 14, 1978) II
• Senate Hearings on S. 2640 (June 1978) (Appendix)
• Senate Report No. 95-969 (July 10, 1978)
• House Report No. 95-1396 (July 26, 1978) (Report on Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1978)
• Senate Report No. 95-1049 (July 28, 1978) (Report on Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1978)
• House Report No. 95-1403 (July 31, 1978)
• Senate-House Conference on S. 2640 (Sept. 18, 1978)
• Senate-House Conference on S. 2640 (Sept. 25, 1978)
• Senate-House Conference on S. 2640 (Sept. 26, 1978)
• Senate-House Conference on S. 2640 (Sept. 27, 1978)
• Senate-House Conference on S. 2640 (Sept. 28, 1978)
• Senate-House Conference on S. 2640 (Oct. 3, 1978)
• Senate Conference Report No. 95-1272 (Oct. 4, 1978)
• House Conference Report No. 95-1717 (Oct. 5, 1978)

By contrast, research into the mark up of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 revealed only one day’s worth of deliberations, and the Senate’s mark up of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011/12 took only five minutes.

Contrast this give-and-take in 1978 over the role of the Special Counsel, as just one facet of law, versus the entirety of the discussion over the WPEA in the Senate, 33 years later.

June 1978:

Sen. Chiles offered that

My feeling is if you put a Special Counsel in and he is appointed by the President, you know, we are really having sort of two groups that are supposed to be doing the same thing, and that is protecting the workers. You have the Merit Board, and the Merit Board is a bipartisan board with staggered terms, and it is certainly supposed to be operating in the best interests and for the best results of protecting employees. And then you turn around and appoint a Special Counsel by the President, and then you get into the whole thing of how do you get rid of him. Is he for cause? Who can initiate?

He also raised the point that

If you have a Special Counsel, and I am concerned with what we did with the Special Prosecutor in this regard, we are starting to create individuals or posts with tremendous power but no accountability  You let the President nominate him, but then he can’t be removed except for cause. He is really sort of accountable to no one once he gets in that job.

Senator Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.) responded to Sen. Chiles’ concerns and said that

[A] Special Counsel appointed by the commission would not have the standing that a Special Counsel appointed by the President would. . . . I would hope that we could take a Presidential appointee subject to Senate confirmation, give him the necessary stature and then give him the necessary protection so then he is really acting as the independent prosecutor. . . [unintelligible] making him a Special Counsel is that we don’t necessarily want them to work together. We are a little bit concerned that the Merit Systems Protection Board may, like so many other boards, get impregnated with the views and the attitudes, et cetera, of the agency which it serves. Therefore, as a check and balance, especially for whistleblowers, we want to have somebody out there who can initiate a prosecution.

Sen. Chiles responded that

Now what happens, every time that we decide we can’t trust one group and so we are going to add another check, I think really what we do is we remove a little further from the people the ability to judge and assess responsibilities and to pinpoint that responsibility, and we diffuse it. But we also make it where government can’t work because they start working at loggerheads.

So I would rather have the responsibility be on the appointments of the Merit Protection Board, that board be confirmed by the Senate, make that board of some stature, make them responsible and allow them to appoint the Special Prosecutor or the Special Counsel, and have that chain of responsibility. I think when you start deviating from that, before long we are going to need somebody to check on the Special Counsel. Then we will have to give some independence to that person because we are afraid the Special Counsel, by virtue of his term or the fact he is only removed for cause — that is just looking at it philosophically.

October 2011:

Read the rest of this entry →

Compare the following scenarios:

Scenario A:

1. Whistleblower A uncovers wrongdoing within an intelligence community agency that implicates classified information.
2. He tries to go to the Inspector General but is deterred upon finding out it’s essentially a trap.
3. He tries to go to Congress but is unsure how to do so without blowing his cover.
4. Unaware of any other options, he goes to the media, believing they can protect his identity.
5. He may or may not reveal any classified information, but some other violation (holding onto classified documents outside approved channels?) trips him up.
6. Coverage by the media results in internal investigations. He gets outed and threatened with legal action.
7. Lawyers at public interest groups swarm to him upon finding out he’s under threat of prosecution for blowing the whistle on state conduct.
8. Justice Department prosecution follows, maybe it succeeds, maybe it doesn’t.
9. Public interest lawyers use this opportunity to promote self in the media, use his case to raise funds with corporate-funded foundations, and offer platitudes about government tyranny while offering no advice to other whistleblowers who seek to avoid the same fate.
10. Future whistleblowers either clam up or encounter a similar fate.

Scenario B:

1. Whistleblower B comes across evidence of wrongdoing by intelligence community agency.
2. Knowing that an agency exists to accept classified disclosures of wrongdoing in a confidential manner, Whistleblower B goes to the Office of Special Counsel.
3. OSC refers disclosure directly to the intelligence committees in Congress and to the National Security Advisor.
4. Congress becomes aware of gross violations of civil liberties.
5. Whistleblower B comes under scrutiny in his agency, but since he broke no law, no prosecution follows.
6. Whistleblower B does come under some form of administrative retaliation, but only then does he go to the media with allegations of retaliation, without disclosing classified information.
7. He recounts the history of having gone to OSC and Congress.
8. OSC expresses concerns about the retaliation but admits it cannot protect this individual.
9. Congress also expresses concerns and flexes its power to pressure the president to put a stop to the retaliation.
10. Media coverage alternates between what the disclosures might be (and making sure they’re taken seriously by Congress, whatever they are, which leads to FOIAs, lawsuits, and legislative hearings), and taking a look at the lack of protections for national security whistleblowers.
11. Legislation to protect national security whistleblowers follows.

Now which scenario do you think applies today?

Now this is tricky, because these groups helped him navigate the treacherous waters of the mainstream media, with mixed results, during his prosecution and through his send-off to prison. So for John Kiriakou to say the following about groups like the Project on Government Oversight (and implicitly the Government Accountability Project), when they expect loyalty in return (Washington being a transactional town and all), is nothing short of astounding:

This comes just a few days after this author sent Mr. Kiriakou a letter* urging him to consider who should speak on his behalf. Where it gets complicated is that GAP currently manages his legal defense fund, which is helping to support his family. That should continue unabated, regardless what insights Mr. Kiriakou shares with the world that prove uncomfortable for GAP and its cohorts.

*This author does not take any credit for this development. From his perspective, it is just a welcome coincidence.

As I see it, certain elements within the whistleblower community are a detriment to whistleblowers acting out of conscience. Mr. Kiriakou will have to make a choice about what kind of person he wants to be after repaying his debt to society. At the very least, such a choice should be an informed one.

I imagine that GAP will now be working double-time to smear this particular critic and do damage control.

Btw, the letter contained a prinout of this diary: http://my.firedoglake.com/wendydavis/2013/03/01/with-head-held-high-john-kiriakou-entered-prison-yesterday/

Is it too soon to say things like:

With this remarkable record and the extraordinary leadership of Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner, we can expect that as disclosures continue to skyrocket and the caseload grows, [the Office of Special Counsel] will handle their investigations and litigation with utmost efficiency and integrity.

As the Project on Government Oversight did just this past week, or:

The track record under the helm of Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner, who assumed office in 2011, is equally as unprecedented as its increased caseload and having increased productivity by over 50% in the past few years[.]

As the Government Accountability Project did a few days ago?

Consider that there are a few grumbles that have arisen so far concerning OSC’s performance:

• Using personal email to conduct government business;
• Allegations of “breakdown in accountability” in investigating improper political activity;
• Employing a template letter to close complaints that shows cursory analysis and use of restrictive standards not warranted under the law;
• Prolonged delays in processing FOIA requests.

Let me be clear: OSC deserves credit for the evident turnaround since the Scott Bloch era. Persistent underfunding continues, in part because the groups mentioned above have not pushed for it before. But this post is not so much about OSC’s performance today, as it is about grounding laudatory statements (and the propensity to make them) with facts. The groups above have a history of jumping to award OSC leadership when, frankly, it did not deserve it. The pattern may be repeating itself here. Facts matter, and the jury is still out.

SILENCED, a new film about whistleblowers by filmmaker James Spione, is currently in post-production. The film features three Government Accountability Project clients (Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, and Peter Van Buren) and one GAP employee (Jesselyn Radack). Here is the trailer.

The film’s promotional material states it will be “offering an analysis, along with a number of independent experts and thinkers, of what [the whistleblowers'] chilling ordeals mean for the future of our country.”

There is no doubt the individuals involved had good intentions when they blew the whistle on various government wrongdoing. There are, however a few wrinkles in several of their stories that I hope will be explored by the independent expert and thinkers, if not Mr. Spione himself.

For instance, concerning Ms. Radack’s account, will the film explore the fact that the emails she believed to have been purged and denied from the court were, in fact, submitted and denied to John Walker Lindh under the court’s protective order?

Will the film explore the fact that Ms. Radack apparently did not make her disclosure concerning Lindh’s allegedly unconstitutional treatment to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which could have accepted her dislcosure confidentially, thus preventing any breach of the attorney/client privilege?

Will the film explore the fact that Ms. Radack did not, for some reason, appeal her termination with either the Office of Special Counsel or the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, as had been her right as a Department of Justice employee (over which both OSC and MSPB exercise jurisdiction), where no statute or executive order bars such jurisdiction?

Will the film explore Ms. Radack’s stated interest in ensuring that the Office of Special Counsel “scrupulously and fully comply with its statutory obligations to protect federal employees from [prohibited personnel practices],” given OSC’s “immense importance to national security,” before apparently neglecting this interest upon taking a job with the Government Accountability Project?

Will the film explore the fact that Mr. Drake could have, at least under the law, submitted his disclosures to the Office of Special Counsel for referral to Congress, but did not do so, choosing to go to the media with all of the attendant consequences that followed?

Will the film explore the fact that even if the government’s prosecution of Mr. Kiriakou for his admitted violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 was motivated by his public interviews about the CIA’s torture techniques, the government had legally justified grounds to do so, given that whistleblowing is not a shield against misconduct?

Let me clarify: there is no excuse for government torture, wiretapping, or denial of rights. This is, or is supposed to be, a nation of laws. And that applies equally so to whistleblowers who seek to bring misconduct to light. Good government activists, advocates, and filmmakers do the public no favors by presenting one-sided accounts that omit, distort, or mischaracterize the rights and responsibilities that face whistleblowers in the course of committing the truth. I hope this film does nothing of the sort.

P.S. if an activist chooses to engage in non-violent disobedience, more power to him/her. There is a rich and storied history of civil disobedience in America to raise awareness and bring about change. But the key word is “choose.” Civil disobedience is not something that can be elected after ignorantly violating the law and then paying for it. The latter is simply propaganda.

In early June, Congress, as channeled by lobbyist Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project, was keen on making sure the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act would get a “clean” savings provision that applied it retroactively, to whistleblowers who were victimized during the last few years.

By the end of August, Devine seemed to be avoiding the issue. After Labor Day, all bets were off in Congress because of “general nervousness,” even though there was “no real opposition” to retroactivity.

The end product didn’t contain the clean savings provision whistleblowers wanted, and now it’s an issue for the courts to resolve. The legal landscape isn’t promising, though presumably the Office of Special Counsel will give it its best shot.

One thing that Congress could do to get past its nervousness this time is understand that real people’s lives are affected. Here’s a running list. Congress should submit an amicus expressing unanimous approval of its newly-minted law applying retroactively. And GAP should organize it.

The Government Accountability Project issued a call today for whistleblowers to submit friend-of-the-court briefs to the Merit Systems Protection Board to support the retroactive application of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. MSPB is in the process of deciding whether to apply the WPEA retroactively to scores of cases it had to put on hold, given that the new law overturns several harmful precedents. The issue of retroactivity is a legal one, centering on whether Congress spoke clearly in intending that the WPEA apply retroactively. This “clear statement rule” was imposed by a 1994 Supreme Court case, Landgraf v. USI Film Products, Inc., stemming from the principle that “retroactivity is not favored in the law.”

A year ago, when the WPEA was still in committee, this author reached out to the lead lobbyist in charge of the WPEA, Tom Devine of GAP, to alert him to the fact that the WPEA may not apply retroactively. Devine sent a memo to his congressional contacts, and later in the spring the overseeing Senate committee included language in a Senate report favoring retroactivity. This was followed by a floor statement from Rep. Todd Platts (R-PA) in the same vein. There is no explicit retroactivity language in the bill itself, however. Therefore, as noted by GAP’s email today, all of this may not be enough. Depending how the MSPB, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and possibly the Supreme Court rule, there is a strong possibility that one or more of these bodies may decide that only bill language counts. What it will come down to, essentially, is the legal philosophies of individual judges and decision-makers, and how much credence they give to individual floor statements and committee reports versus bills passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by the President.

Now GAP has issued a call for whistleblowers to submit briefs to the MSPB, by February 15, saying that “Enough whistleblowers writing to the Board about your whistleblowing disclosures (and the public stakes), will help to underscore the weight of this decision by the MSPB.” This will be a weighty decision by the Board, no doubt, but public sentiment may not be relevant or sufficient to resolve a legal question.

Unfortunately, such a call for public sentiment would have been critical when the WPEA was debated, when Congress could take into account policy preferences in a way that courts may not. The record is clear that GAP did not conduct a transparent and inclusive approach to lobbying in 2011 and 2012. It’s disheartening therefore, but not surprising, that GAP’s call for help today is a consequence of its secretive and exclusive approach to advocacy.

###

GAP Open Call for Whistleblower Amicus Briefs

OSC Notice of Intent to File Amicus Brief – Jan. 10, 2013

MSPB Amicus Order – Jan. 16, 2013

Several articles have emerged that contain praise from non-profit groups toward President Obama for taking steps to protect whistleblowers, albeit at a time when more whistleblowers are prosecuted by his administration than ever before. The coverage goes something like this:

Obama’s Justice Department is prosecuting a number of whistleblowers under the Espionage Act.

A government secrecy expert opines that this is unprecedented.

The article mentions Obama’s efforts to expand whistleblower protections through legislation or executive action.

Non-profit groups such as the Government Accountability Project and the Project on Government Oversight applaud Obama for doing more than any other president in history to protect whistleblowers.

What’s missing, however, is any discussion that such steps are mandated by law, specifically 5 U.S.C. 2301(c), enacted by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978:

(c) In administering the provisions of this chapter—

(1) with respect to any agency (as defined in section 2302 (a)(2)(C) of this title), the President shall, pursuant to the authority otherwise available under this title, take any action, including the issuance of rules, regulations, or directives; and

(2) with respect to any entity in the executive branch which is not such an agency or part of such an agency, the head of such entity shall, pursuant to authority otherwise available, take any action, including the issuance of rules, regulations, or directives;

which is consistent with the provisions of this title and which the President or the head, as the case may be, determines is necessary to ensure that personnel management is based on and embodies the merit system principles. [Emphasis added.]

Key among those “merit system principles” is the protection of whistleblowers.

So is it a fact that Obama has ”done more to affirmatively protect whistleblowers than any other president,” as POGO’s Angela Canterbury recently stated? Yes.

However, it is not out of benevolence or favored policy, but his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The fact that a president is finally executing a 1978 law should not be news or grounds for applause. We elect presidents to execute the laws.

What’s newsworthy is why it took 35 years to get to this point.