A “significant number” of FBI agents — including two Assistant Special Agents in Charge and a legal advisor — cheated on a required bureau exam, the Justice Department Inspector General said in a report issued Monday.
The test — an exhaustive, open-book exam on the FBI’s guidelines for conducting investigations. — was given to all FBI agents, including FBI Director Robert Mueller himself, in 2009 and earlier this year. The exam’s instructions required that it be done individually and required agents to certify that they did not consult with other people on the exam.
For its report, the Inspector General’s office interviewed agents at four field offices around the country. The field offices are not identified in the report. The Inspector General’s office found that many agents consulted with each other on the exam in violation of the instructions. They also found that some agents brought answer keys to the test or exploited a programming flaw that allowed them to see the correct answer to each question.
“In our limited investigation, we found that a significant number of FBI employees engaged in some form of improper conduct or cheating on the DIOG exam, some in clear violation of FBI directives regarding the exam,” the report concluded. “Almost all of those who cheated falsely certified on Question 51 (the final question of the exam) that they had not consulted with others.”
The Inspector General recommended that the FBI discipline agents found to have cheated on the exam and draft and administer a new test.
Soon after the exam was administered in 2009, the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility launched an investigation into allegations that some FBI agents in the Washington Field Office allegedly took the exam together in violation of the rules.
In December, Joseph Persichini Jr., the head of the FBI’s Washington, D.C. office, retired after a controversy over the test. The FBI’s OPR had recommended Persichini receive administrative disciplinary action after the agent reportedly completed the exam in less than 20 minutes and earned a very high score. Persichini announced his retirement before the appeals process had been completed.
The FBI’s OPR found that the cheating might extend beyond the Washington Field Office, and Inspector General’s office opened a broader investigation in January 2010.
UPDATE:
In a statement, Mueller said the FBI would undertake disciplinary action for any agents found to have engaged in improper conduct.
“An uncompromising commitment to integrity remains the backbone of the FBI workforce. It guides us in every aspect of carrying out our mission to protect the American public. When allegations of misconduct relating to the DIOG testing first came to our attention, we moved quickly to investigate, bringing in the Office of Inspector General (OIG). In cases where misconduct has been determined, personnel actions were taken, and that process continues. We will follow-up in each of the 22 cases the IG has found for disciplinary action, as appropriate, as well as any other allegations of misconduct.
“The vast majority of FBI employees successfully completed the DIOG training and the open-book examination that followed, in accordance with the test-taking instructions. While the Office of Inspector General has identified a number of factors that contributed to problems with the test-taking, nothing excuses the conduct of those who chose not to comply when instructions were clear.”
[...] a report issued Monday, the DOJ’s Inspector General found that a “significant number” of [...]