The only federal regulator to become a government whistleblower

Meet Dwight Haskins…

My travesty of justice deserves an outcry

I provided numerous whistleblower disclosures to the FDIC Chairman, Chief Auditor, Ombudsmen, Inspector General and others in the years leading up to the financial crisis in 2006 and 2007; during the 2008/9 financial crisis; and after the crisis when TARP was implemented. I was ignored and stonewalled which led me to petition the FDIC Board to be made aware of my whistleblower complaints and to authorize an independent investigation. I continued to be ignored and muted.

Sadly, had my disclosures been taken to heart by top FDIC officials, the trajectory of the crisis would have changed demonstrably. In fact, the mortgage/bank crisis may have been diverted entirely. I warned about faulty accounting by the banks; suspect actions and violations of regulations pertaining to toxic loan sales; improper approval of bank acquisitions and golden parachutes subsequent to the bailout; unsafe and unsound activities; and discriminatory lending practices by large banks.

Despite all my evidence, such as emailing copies of my disclosures to the FDIC chairman, ombudsmen, inspector general and others, I was unable to get the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) administrative judge to rule that I was a government whistleblower. The administrative judge ignored nearly all of my evidence — finding my evidence too difficult to believe in light that the administrative judge somehow surmised that agency officials surely would have been disciplined or punished in light of my disclosures. (He had the evidence of such but stillrationalized that supervisors would have been disciplined right away if my account were so.)

Most shockingly, the administrative judge never considered that two consecutive ombudsmen resigned or took “early” retirement before they could complete their investigations of my complaints. My second-level supervisor and his supervisor took “early” retirement. The director of my division of supervision took early retirement as did the number two official in the division. An unbiased individual could see that the agency had made a clean-sweep of key officials so as to contain any fallout or reputation damage the agency might encounter should my allegations gain traction. Either that, or key officials had a guilty conscience and sought new beginnings at the same time.

It should be noted that government whistleblowers are entitled by law to have a hearing to present their evidence when they prove that the MSPB has jurisdiction over their whistleblower allegations. In my case, the MSPB had jurisdiction over my complaints as I proved they had jurisdiction, yet, miraculously the MSPB still objected to me being designated as a government whistleblower. The government watchdog authority used politics instead of judicial authority to decide the merits of my case. It knew any evidence I had could cause a public uproar should it find out how regulators helped cause the banking crisis.

By denying me of my lawful right, what the MSPB administrative judge showed was a lack of professional ethics, miscarriage of justice, and misapplication of law. I took my rebuttal next to the MSPB board and asked them for a hearing to reverse the earlier decision. The MSPB board sat on my appeal request for a full eighteen (18) months from July 2011 until Sept 28, 2012, when it finally decided to rule out any hearing for me. Notice the proximity of the Sept 28, 2012, date to the November 2012, Presidential election.

Read on.