The FBI has signed settlement agreements with Garret O’Boyle, Steve Friend, and six other FBI whistleblowers that will provide them with back pay, lump-sum damage payments, restoration of their security clearances, and, in some of the cases, reinstatement to jobs with the bureau.
O’Boyle and Friend were among eight remaining whistleblowers whose settlements were announced Tuesday by Empower Oversight, which represented the current and former FBI employees in their retaliation cases. Two other settlements were previously announced on Aug. 1 and in 2024 under the Biden administration.
“Whistleblowers risk it all for the sake of simply telling the truth. These 10 whistleblowers’ brave actions were met with intense bureaucratic blowback that caused severe financial and emotional hardship,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who helped mediate between the FBI and the whistleblowers.
“Their lives were upended for years, but I never stopped fighting until things were made right,” Grassley said.
