How a civil lawsuit exposed startling 'dysfunction and management woes' at the FBI: report

21 March 2023

A federal jury in Washington, D.C. recently reached a decision in Grzadzinski v. Garland, a civil case in which former FBI Special Agent Marciann Grzadzinski alleged gender discrimination against the national law enforcement agency. The jury sided with the FBI.

Reporters Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney examine the case's trial in an in-depth article published by Politico on March 20, noting that Grzadzinski v. Garland "offered a peek inside the secretive confines of the FBI — describing degrees of dysfunction that are rarely aired, particularly by the FBI insiders themselves."

The case, according to the Politico journalists, showed "dysfunction and management woes" within the FBI "that, at times, have been exploited by the Bureau's detractors — most notably, amid (former President) Donald Trump's crusade against investigations into his activities."

"Among the other revelations unearthed during the trial: A senior lawyer in the office's national security branch allegedly threw a chair at a meeting, prompting alarm on the part of several people present," Gerstein and Cheney explain. "The Justice Department's top watchdog, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, threatened to open an obstruction-of-justice investigation into a senior Office of General Counsel lawyer during a standoff over limitations on the IG's access to FBI files, according to Baker. Justice Department internal legal advisors wound up siding with the FBI in the fight, but Congress overrode them."

The reporters add, "Bureau officials warned of widespread 'grade inflation' in annual performance reviews of FBI personnel, which created problems later when those reviews turned out to be inaccurate…. The trial's proceedings add vivid new details to a lengthy list of allegations of dysfunction that has, at times, hobbled the FBI or drawn it into national controversy. The accumulation both explains Trump's fury at the agency and defies his description of the Bureau as a weaponized political force out to topple him. At times, as the new testimony confirms, the Bureau couldn't get out of its own way."

Read Politico's full report at this link.

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