Internal Reports Show FBI Employees Stepping Over the Line

By Allan Lengel

For AOL News

WASHINGTON — In an agency with thousands of employees, some in the FBI are bound to step over the line.

CNN obtained summaries of internal disciplinary reports by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility dating back to January 2008. The reports detail wrongdoing by employees including lying, drunken driving, improperly going into FBI databases, sexual assault and threatening to release a sexual videotape. Discipline ranged from a letter of censure to dismissal.

The documents, which are regularly circulated internally to FBI employees to remind them to avoid ethical lapses, were posted on CNN’s website.

Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman, responding to questions from AOL News, noted that the total number of employees disciplined for misconduct in the past 3 years represented less than 1.5% of the total workforce worldwide.

“The FBI is an enormously talented organization that demands the very best of its workforce and takes strong and decisive disciplinary action when it is needed,” he said.

Here are some of the cases, according to the documents.

* An FBI employee provided “sensitive information” to his girlfriend, who was a reporter. After their breakup, he threatened to release a sex tape the two had made, according to the documents. She referred the threats to the U.S. attorney’s office. The employee also lied under oath during an administrative inquiry. He resigned after the agency proposed firing him.

* An FBI employee conducted more than 1,500 unauthorized database searches and shared information derived from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with someone outside the FBI. The employee refused to provide a sworn statement during the investigation into the matter and was fired.

To read more click here.