Sen. Chuck Grassley and the Justice Department’s inspector general had previously flagged concerns over how whistleblowers are treated.
FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday announced that the bureau has reached a settlement agreement with 10 FBI whistleblowers that includes backpay and other benefits.
In a post on X, Patel said that “agreements have been reached with 10 FBI Whistleblowers (and counsel) to include a combination of backpay, security clearance, and reinstatement,” before thanking President Donald Trump and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
Breaking: agreements have been reached with 10 FBI Whistleblowers (and counsel) to include a combination of backpay, security clearance, and reinstatement. We greatly appreciate @realDonaldTrump commitment to transparency and accountability. Thank you to @ChuckGrassley for…
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) August 21, 2025
The FBI director did not go into detail about the agreement, but Grassley, the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had previously urged Attorney General Pam Bondi and Patel to take action to undo what he described as “retaliatory personnel actions” against FBI whistleblowers. He also requested that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI restore security clearance to those individuals.
“My office has been told that, in many of these cases, the suspension of their security clearances resulted in immediate, indefinite suspensions without pay while the FBI improperly and intentionally delayed the process for these individuals to contest the adverse action,” Grassley said in a statement issued in March.
He added that government conduct caused financial hardship to the whistleblowers and “placed them in the impossible situation to either resign their position without completing their legal challenge or continue challenging the suspension or revocation of their clearance while suspended without pay with no prospect of obtaining new employment.”
Patel did not release the names of the whistleblowers who are entitled to the new agreement. The Epoch Times contacted the FBI’s press office for comment on Thursday.
Last year, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz told a House panel that his office had concerns about the DOJ’s handling of whistleblowers and added that “employees with a security clearance are particularly vulnerable to retaliation because an employee’s due process protections and right to appeal a security clearance suspension or revocation are more limited than the processes that exist for employment actions unrelated to an employee’s security clearance.”
“This is by design, as deference is given to an agency to ensure that access to classified information can be promptly restricted when a legitimate security concern arises,” he said.
