by Philip Haney
MS. HARF: Well, they’re contacts, and let’s just – I’ll put it in a little context here. We think it’s important to have contacts with all the parties in Egypt, because all the parties in Egypt ultimately are going to need to be a part of Egypt’s future, and that we want to help them be a part of that future and move Egypt out of the situation it’s in today. So we think this is important to do. Do we always agree, do they always agree with what we’re saying? Of course not. But we believe it’s important to have the dialogue.8
It was a revealing moment like this when I saw why I was constantly in so much trouble with the administration.
If the administration was openly and covertly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas, then they certainly didn’t need a CBP officer in Atlanta entering derogatory information into TECS about the very same individuals and organizations they were supporting.
Meanwhile, on March 26, 2014, the House Homeland Security Committee released a report on the Boston Marathon bombings that identified four areas for continued improvement, along with recommendations. The committee hoped to:
• Expand cooperation between federal and local law enforcement;
• Refine the policy surrounding the use of travel records and the screening of international travelers;
• Increase information sharing with regard to various terror/travel watch lists at the federal level; and
• Develop more sophisticated efforts to mitigate terrorist threats.9
All good goals, to be sure, but they were virtually identical to the recommendations made after the Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab “underwear bombing” attempt on Christmas Day 2013, and to some of the conclusions in The 9/11 Commission Report.10
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AND BENGHAZI
Another major event that ties directly into my reasons for becoming a whistle-blower is the Benghazi attack of September 11, 2012.
On April 22, 2014, the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, which includes retired military and CIA officers, released an interim report, How America Switched Sides in the War on Terror, pointing out that the rebel forces were dominated by the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda.
The following day, in London, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced US government support for the Brotherhood-led Libyan Transitional National Council in its revolt against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The report said the White House and senior congressional members “deliberately and knowingly pursued a policy that provided material support to terrorist organizations in order to topple a ruler who had been working closely with the West actively to suppress al-Qa’eda. The result in Libya, across much of North Africa, and beyond has been utter chaos, disruption of Libya’s oil industry, the spread of dangerous weapons (including surface-to-air missiles), and the empowerment of jihadist organizations like al-Qa’eda and the Muslim Brotherhood.”11
It further tied the Muslim Brotherhood to the Benghazi attack, which resulted in the death of US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans:
During their visit to Tripoli, the UAE officials discovered that half of the $1 billion worth of weapons it had financed for the rebels had, in fact, been diverted by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the Muslim Brotherhood head of the Libyan TNC, and sold to Qaddafi….
The key significance of this episode is the demonstration of a military chain-of-command relationship between the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood leadership of the TNC and the al-Qa’eda-affiliated militia (Ansar al-Shariah) that has been named responsible for the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.12
Also in April 2014, declassified documents obtained by the Clarion Project provided evidence that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) misled members of Congress in 2012 about its involvement with Muslim Brotherhood–linked entities: “On July 11, 2012, ODNI told Rep. Michele Bachmann that it had not engaged in outreach to Muslim Brotherhood entities such as the Islamic Society of North America.” But the files show that “Director James Clapper met an ISNA leader just one month earlier.”13
Further, the documents show that messages within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence expressed concerns about ISNA’s and other groups’ Brotherhood links.
The Clarion Project noted that on June 12, 2012, a ninety-minute “Roundtable Discussion” took place at National Intelligence’s headquarters in McLean, Virginia, in which Clapper met with an ISNA representative. Also present were National Counterterrorism Center director Matthew Olson and Alexander Joel, ODNI civil liberties protection officer.
Just keeping track of all these astonishing developments could have been a full-time job in itself, but I was still on TDY as an instructor at FLETC, still under investigation by CBP Internal Affairs about the Boston Marathon bombing, and still waiting for a final response to the IG investigation.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CALLING
Then, from out of the blue, I received an e-mail from Special Agent Shaw (not her real name), a CBP Internal Affairs investigator, on April 22, 2014, saying, “The Office of Internal Affairs is requesting to interview you.”
She wrote:
The interview is voluntary and relates to the Boston bombing.
Are you available Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 2:30 pm to meet with me?
Please feel free to call me for additional information.
I called Shaw and told her I wasn’t saying yes or no, but I had never heard of a “voluntary interview.” I added that I would need to have more information before I answered her request.
“Fine,” she said. “Just let me know when you decide what you’ll do.”
Immediately I called my lawyer, Joe Schmitz, and, on his advice, I deferred agreeing to the voluntary interview and chose instead to wait until Shaw contacted me again.
More than a year later, I learned that a voluntary interview can be conducted only in cases involving criminal charges and that a lawyer may be present. On the other hand, interviews involving administrative charges are never voluntary – you must appear when summoned – neither can a lawyer be present.
In other words, the proposed voluntary interview on April 24, 2014, would have included a discussion about pending criminal charges. Had I simply agreed to the request, I may have walked right into a legal trap.
In the meantime, I decided to reach out to Nick Palarino, House Homeland Security chairman Michael McCaul’s chief counsel.
On April 24, 2014, I sent him a memo expressing concerns based on the Senate report on alleged misconduct by former acting inspector general Charles Edwards.14 By this time I already knew, according to Inspector Michaels, that the investigation was finished, but no one from the IG’s office had contacted me.
I wrote to Palarino:
After reading the entire Senate report on the IG, I am very concerned that the report on my investigation, which has been under review for at least two months, will be edited and/or altered in favor of DHS.
Moreover, we still have no idea what the original report on my case said.
There are several points in the new Senate report that established precedent for my case, should it be edited.
I’ve done all I was asked to do, putting my career and welfare in jeopardy, while I continue waiting for the case to be resolved.
Finally, I have been contacted by CBP Internal Affairs … once again … re the Boston [Bombing] case, for a “voluntary” interview.
I’m standing by for help from the Homeland Security Committee, to finally resolve this case, which is 8-years old and counting.
I never received a response from Palarino.
Things were quiet for about three more weeks, until 10:42 a.m. on May 15, 2014, when I received another call on my cell phone from Special Agent Shaw, who asked me if I had a lawyer, and if so, to give her contact information.
Six days later, on May 21, 2014, the hammer hit the anvil.
This time, it was my lawyer, Joe Schmitz, who received a phone call, but it wasn’t from Shaw.
The call came from Richard Evans, a lawyer within the Department of Justice’s Office of Public Integrity.
Evans said that I was the subject of an ongoing Department of Justice investigation regarding the Boston bombing. No formal indictment had been issued, he said, but under consideration was the offer of a “Pre-Indictment Proffer Letter,” a legal procedure that allows a defendant to plea bargain or avoid charges by cooperating with the investigation.
The case, he said, was based on alleged violation of 18 USC 1030(a) (3), misuse of a government computer. Charges of violation of privacy also could be included.
As I learned later, proffer agreements proposed by DOJ prosecutors often provide the witness or defendant with very little protection.
Schmitz also told me that the DOJ lawyer said he didn’t know I was a whistle-blower or that I had already been investigated by CBP regarding the Boston bombing on July 31, 2013. He told me he reminded Evans about the Whistleblower Protection Act, which describes “whistleblowing” as “making a disclosure evidencing illegal or improper government activities.” It says further that the “protections of the WPA apply to most federal executive branch employees and become applicable where a ‘personnel action’ is taken ‘because of’ a ‘protected disclosure’ made by a ‘covered employee.’”15
As soon as the initial shock wore off, I asked, “Who gave the DOJ my name?”
As we’ll see in the next chapter, it took more than a year, but I eventually found out the answer to that question.
Two days later, on May 23, 2014, there finally was some movement in the inspector general investigation. Staff members from the offices of Sens. Tom Coburn and Charles Grassley, and House members Michael McCaul and Louis Gohmert, were briefed on the results of the investigation by IG personnel from 9 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. in the Ford Building.
It’s a good thing I wasn’t expecting too much, because I wasn’t disappointed.
My contacts in the meeting told me that I still wouldn’t be allowed to have a copy, and as with the “hands off” case, the meeting generated more questions than answers.
Judicial Watch stepped in later that summer and filed a FOIA request on my behalf.
Through the summer of 2014, the “hands off” case generated about twenty-five stories in the media, including a May 21, 2014, Breitbart News article citing McCaul’s disclosure that the case had been under investigation by the new DHS inspector general, John Roth, for about three months.
McCaul said Roth is “pretty decent” and “well respected,” unlike his predecessor.
The article also cited Sen. Charles Grassley telling Brian Kilmeade on Fox News Radio on May 5 that not every whistle-blower that comes to his office may have a legitimate case, but the individual who presented the evidence to Grassley had provided enough information to investigate the issue further.16
Thank you, Senator Grassley.
Meanwhile, back in my office at FLETC, when I read McCaul’s criticism of Edwards, I couldn’t help but wonder why he decided to send me over to the Office of the Inspector General in the first place, rather than just bringing me up to Washington as a CBP attaché, as we had agreed in our March 2014 meeting.
In the same Breitbart article, Rep. Louie Gohmert, who read Grassley’s letter to DHS Secretary Johnson on the House floor two weeks earlier, said he was “thrilled” the Iowa Republican was looking to “get to the bottom of this.”
“For an internal e-mail to indicate that Secretary Napolitano had a hands off list that included people with terrorist ties should be an affront to anyone who cares about security in this country and explains a lot why things like Boston could happen even after we’re supposed to know what we’re doing,” Gohmert said.17
WHISTLE-BLOWER PROTECTION
Remarkably, DHS Secretary Johnson sent out an internal memo on May 20, 2014, encouraging whistle-blowers to cooperate with John Roth, our newly confirmed inspector general:
As you may know, John Roth recently took office as the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new Inspector General. I welcome him to the Department and look forward to his leadership and insight. I believe that the Inspector General serves an important role in helping the Department prevent and detect fraud, waste, mismanagement, and abuse.
… This memorandum is a reminder that I expect all DHS employees to cooperate fully with the Inspector General and his staff in its work and should provide prompt access to requested materials and information.18
On June 17, 2014, Roth distributed an official follow-up memo on DHS stationery, expressing how concerned he and DHS were about protecting whistle-blowers:
One of the ways we do this is through investigations, audits, and inspections. Some of our best work has been the result of conscientious and dedicated DHS public servants who have provided us information that has resulted in saving DHS millions of dollars, or stopped ethically questionable activity. We very much appreciate your assistance.
You can remain anonymous, although we are able to more fully investigate your claim if you identify yourself. The Inspector General Act and the Whistleblower Protection Act give the Inspector General powerful legal tools both to protect your identity and to ensure that you are not retaliated against for reporting allegations. I take my obligation to protect whistleblowers very seriously. We have had hundreds of individuals report matters to us, and we have an outstanding track record in ensuring that your identity is protected.
Part of our program involves the Office of Inspector General Whistleblower Protection Ombudsman. The Ombudsman ensures Department employees and contract personnel are aware of the role and importance of whistleblowers in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Department’s operations and educates them on their legal rights and protections against retaliation. We also alert Department officials and managers to the possible repercussions of retaliation against those who make protected disclosures.
Wow, two encouraging memos within a month, one from Secretary Johnson and one from Inspector General Roth!
It all sounded good, so I decided to take them up their offer and call the IG’s office in Washington to ask about the status of my case.
After introducing myself to the phone receptionist and explaining the purpose of my call, she told me they were not authorized to give me a copy of the investigation.
Instead, I would have to submit a Freedom of Information Act request for it.
“I’m an active-duty CPB officer. I just got the memo from John Roth, our new IG, assuring us of his desire to cooperate with whistle-blowers,” I said. “And now you’re telling me you have no provision to provide me with a copy of the report?”
She replied, “Yes, I understand, but that is the procedure.”
I said: “Do you realize how surreal that sounds? May I talk with your supervisor, please?”
In a few moments, the supervisor came on the line, and ultimately she also informed me that to see the report, I would have to file a FOIA request.
So, that’s just what we did.
Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request on my behalf in midsummer of 2014, and more than a year later, on July 15, 2015, we received the first cache of documents related to the case. Another cache arrived in September 2015, and two more came in November 2015.
Valuable information was buried within these FOIA documents. As we’ll discuss in the final chapter, some of the memos and e-mails would have a direct bearing on events surrounding the December 2, 2015, attack in San Bernardino.
HITTING THE WALL
My TDY assignment at FLETC came to an end August 8, 2014, so I prepared to return to Atlanta.
While I was away, my wife, Francesca, had become very sick, so after I returned home, I took emergency family leave for a couple of weeks to take care of her.
Then, after being away for almost seven months, I returned to work at the port. In two or three days, I was settled back into the daily routine, and things seemed pretty normal until Sunday, September 21, 2014.
That d
ay, as I walked into the Federal Inspection Station, one of the supervisors on the floor caught my attention and said, “Haney, you need to go straight back to the chief’s office.”
This can’t be good, I thought.
It was right at the shift change, so I had to wait for a few minutes in the chief’s office until they called for me.
I got a few looks, but no one said anything, until someone called and told me, “Haney, report to the conference room by Yellow Secondary.”
When I walked into the conference room, two management personnel and a union representative were already there waiting for me. We didn’t sit down or exchange pleasantries. Instead, one of the two management personnel said, “Haney, we need your gun, now.”
“Okay, do you want me to drop the magazine first, and how do you want me to hand it to you?”
I dropped the magazine and handed the gun to him, pointed sideways between us. He also asked for the other two magazines in my belt.
Next, they told me my access to all the systems had been suspended and that I would be put on a “modified duty” schedule and reassigned to a supervisor in the Cargo Office, which is in an offsite building, about a mile from the airport.
They added that I was under investigation, but said that was all they really knew about it.
I was asked to sign a few forms that said my authority to carry a government-issued firearm was temporarily rescinded, due to a pending investigation, and that I would be notified upon completion of the case. The forms also advised me that any failure to follow the reporting instructions could result in possible disciplinary actions.
After we finished, they offered to let me take annual leave for the rest of the day, which I did.
As I left the airport to drive home, I notified my law firm and called my contacts in Congress.
What is this investigation about? I wondered.
I already knew I was under investigation by CBP Internal Affairs for allegedly leaking information about the Boston Marathon bombing. I also knew that the DOJ was investigating me for the same thing, except their case included possible criminal charges.