On February 18, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) introduced the Special Inspector General for Law Enforcement Act (H.R.6762) into the House of Representatives.

On October 6, 2021, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) inquired with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) misclassification of nearly 100 administrative positions and subsequent retaliation of the exposing whistleblower.

In two opinions issued on August 12, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the Department of Veterans Affairs erroneously interpreted the provisions of the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 when disciplining its employees. The purpose of the 2017 law, codified at 38 U.S.C. § 714, was to provide for expedited discipline of VA employees, strip MSPB of its authority to mitigate the VA’s chosen penalty, and to impose a less rigorous burden of proof on the agency at the appellate level than a traditional MSPB appeal.

National Whistleblower Day is celebrated each year on July 30. America’s first whistleblower law was approved during the height of the American Revolution on July 30, 1778 when Congress acted on whistleblower disclosures made about wrongdoing and abuses by a senior officer of the Continental Navy.

On November 3, 2020, the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) announced that it had reached two agreements with the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). A statement by OSC claimed that the “core goals of the agreements are to protect the independence of the respective Inspectors General and provide better outcomes to whistleblowers who report allegations of wrongdoing by OIGs.” The agreements are “the result of a years-long effort to clarify standards of procedure for such disclosures.”

The MSPB cannot consider an agency’s interpretation or presentation of evidence to decide whether an individual-right-of-action presents a non-frivolous allegation of whistleblower reprisal, the Federal Circuit clarified in a recent holding.

This week on 60 Minutes, Norah O’Donnell and the CBS investigative team did a deep dive into the federal agency responsible for providing federal employees with appeal rights should they be disciplined, demoted, or fired: the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Since 2017, the MSPB has lacked a quorum of board members, preventing it from fully functioning. For over a year, the board has not had any members at all.