Memos Show FBI Double Standard on Sexual Misconduct Favors Execs: Grassley

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee at Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Aug. 4, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Internal Department of Justice (DOJ) documents obtained from FBI whistleblowers show at least 44 high-level FBI officials either resigned or retired without being disciplined after sexual misconduct charges were documented against them, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Those 44 officials left the FBI before the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) was able to file official recommendations for appropriate penalties, Grassley said in a statement that was made available to The Epoch Times. The final disposition of one case in which the FBI executive left the bureau after OPR issued its decision isn’t known.

The 45—all of whom were members of the federal government’s Senior Executive Service—were among a total of 665 FBI employees who were confirmed by investigators to have committed sexual misconduct while on the job between 2004 and 2020. The data was produced for a review conducted by the DOJ’s Office of Disciplinary Appeals of FBI disciplinary records.

That review was prompted by a December 2020 Associated Press story that found eight sexual misconduct cases among the FBI’s executive ranks. As a result of the review, FBI Director Christopher Wray in the same month issued a “zero tolerance” memo to agents regarding sexual misconduct on or off duty.

There may be many more examples of sexual misconduct among the FBI’s senior ranks that weren’t documented in the DOJ review, according to Grassley’s statement.

“The data doesn’t include resignations or retirements that occurred prior to the initiation of or during an ongoing misconduct investigation, so the actual number of employees who departed the FBI following allegations of sexual misconduct could be much higher,” Grassley wrote.

The documents provided by whistleblowers to Grassley also indicate the FBI has failed to implement Wray’s policy effectively since it was announced nearly two years ago.

“The only discernible pattern appears to be that higher-graded employees, especially supervisors, are more likely to have their sexual misconduct case adjudicated under Offense Code 5.22, and therefore subjected to lesser penalties; whereas, lower-graded employees are seemingly more likely to be adjudicated under Offense Code 5.20, and have a statistically greater likelihood of being dismissed for their sexual misconduct,” according to an internal DOJ report titled “Inconsistent Adjudication of Non-Consensual Sexual Misconduct.”

That report observed that its findings “may give the appearance the FBI is not holding its supervisors accountable for unwelcome sexual conduct.”

In an Oct. 5 letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Wray, Grassley addressed multiple questions to them and requested answers no later than Oct. 14.

“Simply put, these two documents show a systemic failure within the Justice Department and FBI to protect female employees from sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the workplace and a failure to sufficiently punish employees for that same misconduct,” Grassley told Garland and Wray.

“FBI employees should not have to suffer under daily abuse and misconduct by their colleagues and supervisors. Congress has an obligation to perform an objective and independent review of the Justice Department’s and FBI’s failures and determine the accuracy of the data contained in the documents so that the American people know and understand what, if any, changes have been made to solve these significant problems.”

Grassley’s latest revelations, based on documents he received from whistleblowers within DOJ and the FBI, are bound to strengthen Republican congressional demands for comprehensive investigations and reforms of the bureau.

Prior to the Grassley revelations, the FBI hadn’t been publicly associated with internal sexual misconduct problems, but that changed when it was learned in 2018 that two top-level employees were involved in an inappropriate relationship that became public when many of their official emails were disclosed during a DOJ inspector general investigation.

Peter Strzok, an FBI special agent, and attorney Lisa Page, special counsel to then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, were romantically involved even as they participated in some of the bureau’s most controversial investigations, including into allegations that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was aided by Russia.

In one of the 2016 emails, Strzok told Page an “insurance policy” was needed to ensure that Trump didn’t defeat his Democratic presidential opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The emails with Page were key evidence in the FBI’s August 2018 decision to terminate Strzok, according to the letter from then-FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich. As The Epoch Times reported, Bowdich said in the letter that he was having difficulty fathoming Strzok’s “repeated, sustained errors of judgment” while leading the probe into the Trump–Russia allegations.

In a statement, the FBI told The Epoch Times that “the FBI looks critically at ourselves and will continue to make improvements. The bottom line is, employees who commit gross misconduct and sexual harassment have no place in the FBI.”

The statement also noted that the bureau “cannot legally stop someone from resigning or retiring. It is infuriating that we are left with little disciplinary recourse when people leave before their case is adjudicated. Under circumstances where an employee leaves under inquiry, the FBI takes available steps to ensure that the individual’s file reflects that they left under inquiry, which may lead to disqualification from certain privileges otherwise available to former law enforcement, among other things.”