Washington DC. July 12, 2012. Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has announced his objection to the Senate’s consideration of two nominees for Assistant Secretary positions at the Treasury Department. The announcement came yesterday after the Treasury Department failed to respond to the Senator’s inquiry about the IRS Whistleblower Program holding up to Congressional intent and its own commitments.

Senator Grassley raised the objection based on his deep concern that the IRS whistleblower program is not working.

"Treasury has yet to issue much needed regulations and IRS has paid less than a half dozen awards under the new program," he explained.

The objection will continue until the Treasury Department provides a written response to Senator Grassley's June 21, 2012, request for details of the program’s implementation.

DOJ Admits ‘Mistakes Were Made’ in Review of FBI Whistleblower Allegations

Washington, D.C. July 11, 2012. The Washington Post reported today that the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have launched the largest post-conviction case review in American history. The review was sparked by the work of Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, a top FBI crime lab expert who initially blew the whistle on the laboratory's misconduct twenty years ago, between 1992 and 1998.

In response to Dr. Whitehurst's original whistleblower disclosures, the DOJ formed a Task Force in the mid-1990s to review thousands of cases impacted by Dr. Whitehurst's allegations and to determine if any individuals were wrongly convicted. At the time, the DOJ and FBI pledged to correct their mistakes. However, the DOJ Task Force review was conducted in secret and resulted in very few defendants being notified of problems with forensic evidence.

Washington, D.C. July 11, 2012. The National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) has filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in a precedent-setting whistleblower tax case pending before the U.S. Tax Court. The case, Insinga v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, alleged that the IRS delay in ruling on whistleblower reward cases was tantamount to a denial of claims.

The NWC is asking the Court to apply the Administrative Procedure Act to tax whistleblower cases. This Act permits the Court to find that the IRS has “unreasonably delayed” ruling on whistleblower cases and to order the IRS to commence issuing rulings on the large backlog of whistleblower cases.

Washington, D.C. July 2, 2012. Today, GlaxoSmithKline agreed to settle four whistleblower lawsuits and to pay $3 billion for committing healthcare fraud. Whistleblowers reported that the company had engaged in off-label marketing for multiple drugs and had failed to report important safety data. The agreement marks the largest healthcare fraud settlement in American history.