Republicans have been spending their time at the helm of the U.S. House pursuing some of their debunked conspiracy theories about various political opponents of theirs, ranging from Hunter Biden (a son of the current president) to the FBI itself.
Those efforts include a subcommittee led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that is focusing on the so-called weaponization of the federal government, which considering the actual areas of interest exemplified by those in the Ohio Congressman’s corner just means investigative actions that Trump and allies of his don’t like. At a recent hearing of that subcommittee, Jordan heard from multiple individuals with histories in the FBI who were generally characterized as whistleblowers… but in an article for MSNBC, former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi argued that these individuals don’t really count as whistleblowers at all. You can’t just speak such a status into existence. There are, in actuality, specific actions that leave someone with such a status, which comes with protections.
“It’s important, first, to dispel the myth that these agents count as whistleblowers,” Figliuzzi wrote. “To be officially designated whistleblowers, FBI employees must follow specific procedures. None of Jordan’s witnesses did so, thus, none of them was granted whistleblower status. More importantly, real FBI whistleblowers must also legitimately attempt to make what’s known as a protected disclosure of serious misconduct or criminal wrongdoing — usually described as waste, fraud or abuse.”
Under an entity in the federal Justice Department known as the Office of Professional Responsibility, standards for whistleblower status include having made a “protected disclosure” in which it was communicated that they “reasonably believed that his or her disclosure to the designated official or entity showed a violation of law, rules, or regulations; gross mismanagement; a gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority; or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.”
It’s not just a given that this standard would be met. Covertly copying internal files, as one of the individuals from whom Jordan heard was accused of doing, isn’t a protected disclosure, and neither is the alleged violation by that same individual of Florida law demanding that both parties consent before a conversation be recorded. A second guy, Marcus Allen, was alleged to have reported finding no substantially relevant information in open-source research on a January 6 subject who was later alleged to have assaulted police. Again — not a protected disclosure!
