Welcome!
Hi, I'm John Doe Andrew G. Watters, Esq. I decided to re-publish this 2011 version of my website in conjunction with my Hall of Shame entry about the FBI Special Agent Clearance Unit. The purpose of this website is to record one applicant's complete FBI application process for the benefit of anyone considering applying to the FBI. The author, who was rejected at the beginning of his background investigation, anonymously discusses his mistakes, successes, and other aspects of his application.
In sum, this case demonstrates why the Merit Systems Protection Board, despite some very significant shortcomings, should have jurisdiction over the excepted service and especially FBI applicant suitability determinations: to prevent FBI employees from falsifying information or otherwise manipulating the selection process, then covering up their abuses of power with further abuses.
I was rejected on July 1, 2009 based on false information reported by SACU Special Agent Grahm L. Coder (still with the FBI as of 2025), who had graduated the Academy three months prior. He didn't like me because I laughed at one of his questions and thereby wounded him, a major narcissist. The false information was requested by a Personnel Security Specialist who decided to disqualify me on any possible basis and prevent me from appealing. The false information was then used to get a legal opinion from the FBI Office of General Counsel that I was a party to a drug transaction that I was not involved in. The Special Agent intentionally failed to contact the witnesses he asked for for verification purposes, or identify them in his FD-302. The Special Agent failed to file or even mention email messages that I sent him at his own request, and he falsely represented to the FBI that two different phone conversations and multiple email messages over a five-day period were all a single telephone call on one day. He did not pursue leads that I gave him, contrary to the requirement in the manual to pursue "every lead to its logical conclusion." The Special Agent backdated his FD-302, apparently to make it look like he wrote it before the Office of General Counsel weighed in on the matter. The analyst omitted mitigating information from her suitability determination in an effort to sustain her decision to disqualify me. This is all laid out and supported with evidence in my appeal of February 7, 2010 and my First Amended Appeal of May 1, 2011; you be the judge.
What type of personal issue or other problems could possibly prompt a Special Agent in the FBI and an analyst to decide that they were sufficiently qualified and experienced to judge an applicant as unworthy of continued processing, and then intentionally falsify information and suppress exculpatory witnesses and information, in order to ensure the applicant's disqualification? I posed these very issues to the paralegal in the Employment Law Unit with whom I was dealing in my MSPB case, and she didn't respond.
I've corresponded with another applicant who, distressingly, had a similar experience with a different Special Agent in the Special Agent Clearance Unit. We had similar qualifications and experience, although this other applicant got a full background investigation and went to a better law school, so he was probably more qualified than I was for the position. I've considered all the facts and concluded that what happened to him is just as bad as what happened to me. How can both of these Special Agents presume to judge us and reject us as unfit to serve our own country when they, and not us, are the ones violating the FBI's own core value of Integrity?
The FBI maintains an appeals board to reconsider adjudications, as proved by several documents in my file. I appealed the decisions made in my case in February 2010. My appeal was constructively denied shortly thereafter when I got a letter from the ICS Section Chief, who by the way gives a hypocritical podcast interview on the FBI website about how fair the background investigation allegedly is. SSA Mark Gant writes that the FBI considers "this matter" closed, and that I have "exhausted" my administrative "options." I sent my appeal to the right people. What this means is that they never presented my appeal to the review board, or they presented my case to the review board before I actually appealed so that I would not be heard. Who could blame them? I have a declaration from a percipient witness and the reports or notes of three other Special Agents hosing the SACU Special Agent's version of the facts. The FBI certainly does not wish to determine whether the SA in question falsified information, as that could impact security clearances and criminal convictions with which he was ever associated under the Brady-Giglio line of cases, not to mention potentially ending his career. I really wish they had dealt with this matter internally instead of forcing me to resort to the only forums I have to air these concerns: federal court and the internet. Hopefully the Director, to whom I appealed in May 2011, treats the matter more seriously.
Obviously, my chances with the FBI are over, even if I win this case and prove that false information disqualified me. Publicizing all of this information is something that just isn't done. However, I have to do something about it if I ever want to be a government employee, which I might in some other agency. Would another agency really turn down someone honest, with principles, who can put together a convincing if very discomforting case that embarrasses another agency? I don't know. What I do know is that I've been called all kinds of names on internet message boards, including in the 35-page thread on this case on the Federal Soup website, and especially on 911jobforums.com. I can live with that, because everyone is entitled to his opinion. There is one thing, however, that I have never been called, even in the nastiest, most judgmental, most personal messages or comments that I've received about this case. As best I recall I have never been called a liar.
What I learned from my experience is that once the FBI decides they don't want you, it is basically futile to do anything about it. The process appears to have been arranged so that it is impossible for a rejected applicant to change the decision, particularly when the issue with the decision is an error or irregularity that shows that someone in the FBI screwed up. There are so many applicants that it's easier for them to just take the next person. And it's certainly easier to ignore a complaint from an applicant than deal with the problem. I mean, look at what I've had to go through (see file) so far. People often say they have no idea why a really qualified applicant got rejected. Well, now you know why; power tripping egomaniacs abuse the process. Because it's the excepted service, they are above the law.
My complaint to the Office of Professional Responsibility enclosing a percipient witness declaration and explaining all of this was ignored, as were my three letters to Assistant Director Candice M. Will, the director of the Office of Professional Responsibility, my complaint to the Inspection Division, and multiple letters up the chain of command asking about the status of my complaint. I do not know whether the Inspection Division will actually investigate this matter.
The FBI that would completely ignore outright dishonesty and falsification of investigative records in its own ranks, even when proved by clear and convincing evidence, is a different FBI from the one I wanted to join. I'm sure there are many wonderful people in the organization--I met a lot of them during selection; particularly the other applicants! So all is not lost for you; I just pissed off the wrong people at Headquarters. From what I have read in memoirs of former agents, that happens quite a bit.
Current applicants are invited to email the author for advice on filling out their SF-86 forms and other aspects of the process. I do not charge for anything; it's literally free for anyone interested. On another note, I wish I could restrict this site to only serve U.S. IP addresses, but I'm not aware of any way to do that other than manually entering all of the IP address ranges for our whole country and denying access from all others-- and even then it might not work. Anyone who can suggest a reasonable method that does not require user registration, which would defeat the purpose of this anonymous repository of information, is invited to do so.