Interesting article from the on-line Panama-Guide:

When Cecilia Woods, an FBI special agent based in Panama, suspected her boss of having extramarital affairs including one with a paid informant in 2000, she reported her concerns to bureau officials -- and started investigating on her own. For her trouble, the bureau suspended her for 10 days, then later transferred her to a less prestigious post in Washington, Woods said. The 23-year veteran retired in 2005 after enduring a second, unrelated suspension of 14 days and concluding that she would never get back in the agency's good graces. "All I wanted is for the FBI to look into his actions," Woods said in an interview. "And because I raised the issue with the bureau, the bureau came after me instead. The bureau made me the target."

Editor's Comment: FBI Special Agent Cecilia Woods was up to her neck in the investigation of the "Travelgate" scandal of the Clinton administration. She was one of the FBI agents assigned to review forms from White House personnel for security clearances. She testified that she reported errors and irregularities on the forms to her supervisors, and no action was taken.

Grassley Backs Ex-FBI Agent
Alliance Challenges Agency's 'Double Standard' on Discipline

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 25, 2006; Page A17

Woods, who in 2001 filed an equal employment opportunity complaint alleging a hostile work environment, is hardly the first federal employee to allege that she was the victim of unfair treatment by the brass. But she has attracted a powerful ally -- Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a longtime critic of the FBI.

Woods's supervisor eventually admitted to the affairs, and to giving the informant lingerie and other gifts, said Grassley, whose staff investigated the case. For that and for misusing government vehicles, he received a 14-day suspension, a demotion and a transfer to the office of his choice, Grassley said.

In a six-page letter sent Monday to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Grassley cited Woods's case as an example of what he believes is a chronic "double standard" of discipline at the agency, in which misconduct by supervisors is punished more lightly than that by underlings. The FBI also has a habit of dealing more harshly with misconduct by agents who are seen as disloyal than by those seen as loyal, wrote Grassley, who asked Mueller for more information about discipline at the agency.

"The lesson is this: If you are loyal to the FBI and you are a supervisor, it is possible to engage in conduct that dishonors the Bureau and undermines its mission while keeping your job," Grassley wrote. "However, if you show any sign of disloyalty to the FBI or your supervisors, they will try to fire you -- even if your 'disloyalty' consists of reporting misconduct or concerns about national security."

An FBI spokesman said the agency planned to review Grassley's letter before responding "in an expeditious manner" to the senator. "The director is currently traveling overseas, and therefore the FBI has no additional response at this time," Special Agent Richard Kolko said.

The thrust of Grassley's criticism is not new. A 2002 report by the Justice Department's inspector general said there was a perception among FBI employees that a double standard of discipline exists within the agency. That view arose, in part, because there was a separate disciplinary system for managers until 2000. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine cited several "troubling cases" in which discipline for managers appeared "unduly lenient."

In 2003, Fine reported on inappropriate sexual behavior and racial comments by senior FBI managers, saying the incidents reinforced earlier findings that the agency had repeatedly let senior managers get away with egregious conduct while handing out stronger punishment to lower-level employees who behaved similarly.

Woods drew her first suspension after she asked a hotel bar worker to let her know when her supervisor left the hotel. Woods and the supervisor had met with the informant in a hotel room before he told Woods to depart, leaving the two of them alone -- and Woods suspicious. She was suspended in February 2001 for acting unprofessionally and providing information to an non-bureau individual (the hotel worker).

Woods received her second suspension in November 2003 for providing her attorney in her EEO case with unredacted documents that may have contained sensitive or classified materials. Woods acknowledged the lapse but said that "there was nothing classified. If anything, there were some names that were sensitive."

In his letter, Grassley wrote: "I am aware of no evidence that her alleged disclosures, either to the acquaintance in the hotel bar or to her attorney, had any actual negative impact on the security of FBI operations."

Woods said the experience in Panama taught her that FBI discipline runs on the "good old boy" system. "I wanted the bureau to be responsible," she said. "They shoved everything under the carpet. They just didn't want to look at it."