Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz spoke for the first time Wednesday about the FBI’s decision to suspend, and then reinstate 27 months later, the security clearance of one of its agents who had questioned the bureau’s leadership, calling the move “concerning.”
Horowitz told the House Judiciary Committee that FBI agent Marcus Allen’s case was emblematic of “systemic issues” with the DOJ’s security clearance process.
“It was consistent with policy to allow someone like Mr. Allen to be out of his job on unpaid leave for more than two years and try and fight that process,” Horowitz said.
Horowitz testified alongside Allen and Allen’s lawyer, Tristan Leavitt, about the lack of due process that DOJ employees are afforded, particularly when they partake in whistleblowing activity about perceived wrongdoing within the department. The DOJ tends to suspend or revoke security clearances as it investigates employees, leaving them without pay for sometimes many months or even years.
Horowitz said the process was unfair, and in May, he recommended in a public memo that the DOJ make corrections. Horowitz said the DOJ has been receptive to his recommendations.
Nevertheless, Allen’s case has become a cautionary tale of how the DOJ’s decision to temporarily suspend its employees’ security clearances while it investigates personnel matters can unfairly upend their lives.
“The process has definitely felt like punishment,” Allen said of being forced to take unpaid leave from January 2022 to June 2024.
Allen, a decorated Marine veteran, had a pristine record with the FBI through 2021. He has had a top-secret security clearance since 2001 and won an “Employee of the Year” award in 2019 while working in the Charlotte, North Carolina, field office.
But when Allen, who was tasked with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, sent a routine internal email to his colleagues and superiors in September 2021 calling into question leadership decisions at the FBI, his situation went downhill, according to Horowitz.
Allen often emailed his colleagues with news items, but in this particular email, he wrote that there was “a good possibility the DC elements of our organization are not being forthright about the events of the day.” Allen then referenced FBI Director Christopher Wray’s recent testimony before Congress regarding the presence of confidential human sources, or FBI informants, covertly attending the riot.
Horowitz said that after Allen was warned by his superiors not to send any more emails like that, Allen complied. Unbeknownst to Allen, the FBI Security Division began investigating him to see if he posed an “insider threat,” Horowitz said.
The inspector general said that despite finding scant concerning behavior upon its review of Allen, the FBI Security Division decided in January 2022 to yank his security clearance, effectively suspending him without pay indefinitely, while they continued to investigate him.
Allen received a notice at the time of his suspension in which the FBI Security Division alleged that he “espoused conspiratorial views” about Jan. 6 and that the division has “sufficient concerns” about his “allegiance to the United States.”
Allen eventually filed a complaint with Horowitz’s office alleging that the FBI was retaliating against him for whistleblowing activity. Allen said the retaliation included the FBI keeping his family in “indefinite limbo” and forcing him to withdraw from his retirement account to get by financially.
The FBI agreed to reinstate his security clearance in June 2024 and give him 27 months of back pay. As of Wednesday, Allen has still not received the back pay, but Leavitt told the Washington Examiner the bureau has said it is coming soon.
“The FBI promptly completed our steps to provide Mr. Allen with his backpay after we reached resolution of his claims and referred this for action to the government agency that disburses funds,” an FBI spokesperson said.
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Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) raised a separate concern during the hearing about Jan. 6, asking Horowitz if he would provide information in a forthcoming inspector general report about how many FBI informants were indeed present during the riot. The information would, incidentally, validate concerns Allen raised with his colleagues in 2021 for which he was eventually punished.
“Our report will include the information in that regard,” Horowitz replied, noting that he hoped his office would release the report “in the next couple months.”