A group of FEMA employees believe The Department of Homeland Security violated whistleblower laws after they were placed on administrative leave for signing a dissent letter over changes at their agency under the Trump administration. GEL Partner Kevin Owen, shared his reaction with the Federal News Network.
Owen said he typically tries to assess a client’s motivation and whether they have evidence to back up their claims.
“Once we get that, that’s when you can start telling that this is something that has traction,” Owen said. “The one thing that usually leads me to believe that my clients have a compelling whistleblower disclosure is when management immediately puts them all on admin leave, because if it was frivolous, they would ignore it, or they would go through some sort of administrative disciplinary process that would be appropriate to handle those sorts of issues. Handling it this way leads me to think there’s smoke and fire.”
But Owen said protected disclosures can be made public, so long as the information contained within them is not prohibited by law from being released.
“If there’s a statute that says you can’t share this information, then releasing it publicly is problematic,” Owen said. “Absent that, then it is a protected disclosure.”
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