We are patriotic Americans— including federal agency employees—calling out the stonewalling of Cathy Harris, the Chairman of the US Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
Instead of doing her duty to resolve a well-evidenced whistleblower disclosure against her and her predecessors since 1979, she apparently considers it her sworn duty to “protect” MSPB. She refuses to “sound the alarm,” as required by law, that federal agency employees are not adequately protected from reprisal. Her failure to do her duty and her stonewalling puts America at increased risk of a nuclear 9/11 or other existential catastrophe. Her failure to do her duty nullifies President Biden’s pledge to “have the backs” of concerned federal agency employees.
- We are federal agency employees and other concerned Americans “blowing the whistle” on decades of lawbreaking by Cathy Harris and other current and former leaders of the US Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Cathy Harris successfully stonewalled addressing our whistleblower disclosure before being confirmed as permanent Chairman of MSPB by the Senate on March 6, 2024, on a straight party line vote, 51-48.
- Apparently, she considers it her sworn duty as an attorney, to protect her client—MSPB, the agency she also leads—regardless of risk and harm to merit-based federal agency employment and, hence, American health, safety, security and welfare. The DC Bar, her law licensing authority, takes no exception to that reasoning. According to it, she has no duty, as an attorney, to faithfully fulfill the statutory duties of her office. On the other hand, she has a paramount duty, as an attorney, to protect her client’s interests, including stonewalling well-evidenced whistleblower disclosures against it.
- Our still unresolved whistleblower disclosure is that Ms. Harris is failing or refusing to discharge her statutory duty to “sound the alarm” to the President and Congress that federal agency whistleblowers are NOT adequately protected from reprisal. A number of whistleblower advocacy organizations agree this is a well-evidenced, significant, whistleblower disclosure. Despite this, Ms. Harris stonewalls.
- Federal agency employees, consistent with their Oath of Office, and U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) regulation, have a positive duty to join “blow whistles.” But they risk their jobs to do so, since they are not adequately protected from reprisal, in part due to the lawbreaking and stonewalling of Cathy Harris. On the other hand, Ms. Harris apparently reasons she would be corrupt, as an attorney, if she did not do her utmost to stonewall an objective resolution of the whistleblower disclosure, regardless of the risk and harm to American health, safety, security and welfare.
- We contend the resolution of this whistleblower disclosure is urgent and important—that the lawbreaking and stonewalling of Ms. Harris and her predecessors is a causal factor to much harm and risk to American health, safety, security and welfare since the creation of MSPB in 1979.
- We call upon Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Wyden, the Co-Chairs of the Senate Whistleblower Caucus, as well as other members of this caucus, to request Ms. Harris answer questions about our whistleblower disclosure, including her conflicting roles in being both the leader of MSPB and in an attorney-client relationship with it.
Whistleblower Joe Carson dishes on how the federal government has ignored ongoing nuclear safety risks.
Secretary Granholm’s Unsafety Dance
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