The road map for reporting and investigating allegations of misconduct, policy abuses, and potential criminal violations within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is slightly different from other federal agencies.

The two key federal statutes FBI employees must rely upon is 18 U.S.C.  §§ 2302 & 2303. In that context, I submitted multiple original complaints, as well as numerous allegations of whistleblower retaliation. In my living global complaint, which has in some form another been supplied to the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) or the FBI Inspection Division (INSD) at one time or another, I include the following: 

“All allegations made or submitted by [SA] Vose in the past were submitted to those individuals or entities approved to accept such complaints per 18 USC § 2303(a)(1)(A-H). Finally, such allegations submitted in the past, and those encompassed in this global complaint document, are allegations which [SA] Vose reasonably believed may have violated, “…any law, rule or regulation,” and/or evidenced “gross mismanagement…an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.”

It has been [SA] Vose’s sole intention and desire from the beginning, for an independent and objective authority to review all allegations made or submitted by [SA] Vose. [SA] Vose understands the allegations he made or provided can be unfounded or founded, but that must be determined by an entity other than [SA] Vose and other than FBI Anchorage (AN) Executive Management (EM). To be crystal clear, FBI AN EM, as described below, are anything but independent and objective, they are, in many instances, the subject of [SA] Vose’s misconduct complaint(s) and/or multiple reprisal complaints.

Finally, it goes without saying, but the information and allegations laid out in this document is the truth as [SA] Vose understands it and knows it currently. It is possible the “facts” outlined below may not actually be facts, especially where [SA] Vose posits educated guesses and surmises motivations.”

The key items to highlight: 1) everything I intend to share are allegations that I believe were never investigated in an objective and thorough manner; 2) my intention is to shed light on how the FBI and DOJ fails to investigate credible allegations by the rank-and-file, and will immediately investigate the dubious and sometimes false allegations if put forward by management against one of their employees, effectively implementing a real two-tiered internal system of justice; 3) I will not identify specific people, apart from public figures such as Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Director (DD) Paul Abbate, unless they are the recipients of emails I may share. Even those I made credible allegations against have due process, and until they are investigated fairly and found responsible, their names should and must remain undisclosed. 

Furthermore, I wanted to point out a couple things. Everything I will share is my version of events. There are always two or even multiple sides to every issue. I can only convey what happened to me, and what I witnessed.

With assurance, the issues I am aware of far exceed the threshold for an appropriate internal investigation to have taken place. Apart from DD Abbate ordering a full leadership inspection of the FBI Anchorage Field Office in early March 2023, little, if anything is known to have been done about the specific allegations. It is as if those responsible, both current and former employees of FBI Anchorage, received a golden parachute or get-out-of-jail free card, or whichever metaphor one chooses to us, with the full backing of the FBI chain-of-command. 

During my time in Detroit, Puerto Rico, and South Dakota, I never witnessed or even heard about such little “c” corruption that ran rampant in the FBI Anchorage Field Office between 2021 – 2023. I too was brainwashed into believing the FBI was above suspicion. The first cracks in my belief structure surfaced not at the field office level, but with Director James Comey in 2016. 

Not once, but twice, former Director Comey acted outside the scope of his duties by positioning himself to interfere with the 2016 presidential election – perception is reality, like it or not. 

Everyone in the law enforcement world know very well the decision to prosecute does not typically rest with the investigating officer/agent. Rather, it is the purview of the prosecutor – in this case it should have been Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Director Comey interfered in July 2016 when he decided Hillary Clinton did not need to be prosecuted, effectively alienating Donald Trump supporters. 

Director Comey then doubled down by throwing Hillary Clinton under the proverbial bus a mere week-and-a-half before the 2016 election when he publicly announced the reopening of the investigation into her, drawing the ire of Hillary Clinton supporters.

I, and most other FBI employees were perplexed to say the least. We desperately wanted to be viewed and treated as an apolitical agency, but not under Director Comey’s watch, his outsized ego would not allow it. 

Next, there seemed to be some confusion as to what I meant by little “c” corruption. Let me explain. Put simply, the word “corruption” in the United States is used in a very loose manner. It is a subjective term that is cast against anyone who, among other things, may not implement policy the way people believe should be implemented, engage in soft conflicts of interest, seemingly lie to the public, engage in workplace retaliation, etc. The point is, little “c” corruption is morally and ethically wrong, often violates policies and maybe even statutes.

Little “c” corruption is slime NOT crime. 

As opposed to big “C” corruption where at the state and federal levels there are codified criminal statutes on the books, such as bribery, extortion, embezzlement, etc., that require defined elements to be met. If found guilty, the subject of such a case faces significant prison and/or financial consequences. 

The most glaring problem with the federal corruption laws are the statutes of limitation typically being a mere five (5) years. More to follow on this serious problem Congress has self-servingly failed to fix.

I would like to reiterate, for the most part, much of what I have knowledge about is slime, not necessarily crime.  If there is one thing all Americans can and should unite on, it is the premise that public officials at all levels (tribal, local, state and federal), should not engage in little ‘c’ nor big ‘c’ corruption. 

I am not aware of anyone appreciating any public official abusing what little state power they’ve been given pursuant to their official position to:

• Unnecessarily burden anyone
• Play favorites
• Target specific people based on real or perceived characteristics
• Flippantly break federal and state civil and/or criminal statutes because ‘they are above the law’
• Waste taxpayer money on superfluous items and trips
• Knowingly fail to report sexual assault allegations and then engage in a cover up
• Retaliate against other public officials who identified enough red flags to mandatorily report such activity
• Obstruct other agencies’ criminal investigations to the detriment of national security

A significant barrier to tackling public corruption (both little ‘c’ and big ‘c’ variety) is the widespread fear among public sector workers of retaliation if they blow the whistle on fraud, waste, and/or abuse. Many employees are deterred from reporting misconduct due to the fear of losing their jobs. I certainly hesitated.  As do many others who are currently employed by the FBI. 

When they do come forward, they often face severe repercussions, including job loss, without the resources or connections necessary to hire a private attorney to challenge the retaliatory actions. 

The FBI engages in a secretive and vile internal campaign to destroy its whistleblowers, to include over classifying documents that are definitively not classified to justify failing to turn them over; consistently providing false information and perjuring themselves (e.g., “I can’t recall” or “I forget” when confronted with relevant questions under oath or within the confines of an internal investigation); defaming its current and former whistleblowers (e.g., FBI Anchorage’s Share Drive Scandal, to be detailed later); and in some circumstances walking whistleblowers out the door for an indefinite period of time without pay and without the authority to engage in outside employment. This is particularly horrific because it financially robs the employee of hiring counsel to defend themselves against FBI abuses.

Where am I going with all this?  A current FBI employee said it best this week, “…you have to tear it down to rebuild it…And if things get worse for the community, as well as the BU [FBI], during that time, so be it.” And “It’s incumbent upon the BU to rebuild trust now. And the only good way to do that – the only honest way – is to make changes the public can actually see.” 

I genuinely hope Kash Patel can do just that – tear it down and rebuild in a public and open manner. As I told another former colleague recently, if Patel pushes the pendulum so far in the other direction, I have no qualms calling him out as well. 

Tyler Vose is a seasoned professional with a diverse background in law enforcement, military intelligence, and private sector consulting. Currently, he is the owner of Denali Defense Solutions where he provides criminal and civil defense consulting, as well as services to help businesses and public entities protect themselves from fraud, corruption, and foreign malign influence while ensuring compliance with federal regulations. Prior to his entrepreneurial venture, Mr. Vose served as a Federal Law Enforcement Special Agent with the FBI for over 12 years, focusing on public corruption and white-collar criminal matters, and Army Criminal Investigative Division for one-year. His investigative work led to numerous high-profile convictions, including one of the largest public corruption cases in Michigan history.