July, 14 2010, 10:08am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,info@peer.org
Whistleblowers Still Run Daunting Gauntlet Under Obama
Miniscule Chances of Success, No New Policies and Key Slot Remains Unfilled
WASHINGTON
The fate and treatment of whistleblowers has not materially improved
under the Obama administration, according to Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility (PEER). President Obama has staked out no
policy differences from the Bush administration and has yet to even
nominate a Special Counsel, a key position that is supposed to defend
and advocate for whistleblowers.
The
absence of any whistleblower initiative from the Obama administration
is critical because the prospects for whistleblowers successfully
challenging retaliatory actions by their agencies are bleak:
- An
examination of decisions from Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB)
judges who hear whistleblower cases reveals that, on average, federal
employees won less than one in 50 hearings (1.6%) in 2008, the latest
year for which statistics are available; - For those
cases that are appealed to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the
odds are even worse with whistleblowers winning only one in 200 cases
(0.5%) in the last 15 years; and - President Obama
has not nominated a Special Counsel, a position vacant since President
Bush fired his own appointee for cause in December 2008. That previous
Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, subsequently pled guilty to criminal
obstruction charges stemming from his effort to block congressional
inquiries into reprisal against whistleblowers inside his own office.
"Protection
of whistleblowers does not appear on the Obama administration's radar,"
stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "The White House has taken
the time to name National Endowment for the Arts advisory committee
members but has not found time in 18 months to select a Special
Counsel."
Significantly, the Obama administration
has also not settled many of the whistleblower cases emanating from the
Bush administration, including cases cited as abuses by Obama
officials, such as the dismissal of U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa
Chambers for honestly answering questions from the Washington Post.
While new Obama appointees to the MSPB show signs of reversing dismal
trends for whistleblowers, the cadre of administrative judges remains
unchanged. The evaluation criteria for those judges (which PEER
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act) reveal a priority on
volume and speed: judges are expected to render between 80 and 120
decisions per year, 95% of which are expected to be completed within
"relevant time limits"(generally 110 days from the filing of the
initial complaint). Even the "Quality of Decisions" standards appear
to give equal weight to elements such as proper spelling and citation
versus "consideration of relevant facts, evidence and authority bearing
on the issues."
"The chances for whistleblowers winning in the federal civil service
system remain remote at best," commented PEER Staff Counsel Christine
Erickson. "We have not found any evidence to support the
counterargument that 'all the good cases settle' before MSPB must make
a decision." Besides legal services, PEER provides channels for
federal employees to blow the whistle anonymously, so their message is
delivered without revealing the identity of the messenger.
###
View the track record of MSPB judges
See the evaluation criteria for MSPB judges
Consider the case of U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers
Examine delay in rules protecting scientific whistleblowers
Look at continued mistreatment of whistleblowers
Revisit the bizarre history of the previous Special Counsel
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local, and tribal employees.
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'Insane This Is Legal': Bettors Make Huge Profits From Suspiciously Timed Wagers on Iran War
"Reminder that Donald Trump Jr. sits on Polymarket's advisory board and his firm invested double-digit millions into the platform last year."
Mar 01, 2026
Bettors on the prediction platform Polymarket made a killing with suspiciously timed wagers that the United States would attack Iran by February 28, the day President Donald Trump announced a bombing campaign against the Middle East nation.
Bloomberg reported that six accounts on Polymarket, all newly created this month, "made around $1 million in profit" by betting on the timing of the US attack on Iran. The accounts, according to Bloomberg, "had only ever placed bets on when US strikes might occur," and "some of their shares were purchased, in some cases at roughly a dime apiece, hours before the first explosions were reported in Tehran."
One account with the name Magamyman raked in over $515,000 by betting roughly $87,000 that the "US strikes Iran by February 28, 2026."
The lucrative bets quickly drew scrutiny from lawmakers. US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on social media that "it’s insane this is legal."
"People around Trump are profiting off war and death," Murphy alleged. "I’m introducing legislation ASAP to ban this."
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) wrote that "prediction markets cannot be a vehicle for profiting off advance knowledge of military action" and demanded "answers, transparency, and oversight."
"Reminder that Donald Trump Jr. sits on Polymarket's advisory board and his firm invested double-digit millions into the platform last year," Levin wrote, referring to the president's eldest son. "The [Justice Department] and [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] both had active investigations into Polymarket that were dropped after Trump took office."
There's no concrete evidence that Trump administration officials or staffers were behind the hugely profitable bets, but the wagers heightened concerns about the possibility of insider trading using increasingly popular prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi. Last month, bettors used Polymarket to make big profits on suspiciously timed wagers on when the US would oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Polymarket currently allows users to bet on when Iran will have a new supreme leader, when the US and Iran will reach a ceasefire agreement, and when the US will invade Iran.
The celebrity news tabloid TMZ reported Saturday that "a group at a Washington, DC restaurant was talking openly in the bar area Friday afternoon about a national secret that was about to literally explode hours later—the bombing of Iran."
As journalist David Bernstein noted, that—if true—leaves open the possibility that "these 'insider' bets have been placed by any rich person with good ears in DC."
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Experts Pillory Trump Case for War on Iran: 'Flimsiest Excuse for Initiating a Major Attack' in Decades
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Senior Trump administration officials attempted during a briefing with reporters on Saturday to make their case for the joint US-Israeli military assault on Iran that has so far killed hundreds and plunged the Middle East into chaos.
According to experts who listened to the briefing, which was conducted on background, the justification for war was incredibly weak. Daryl Kimball, president of the Arms Control Association, told Laura Rozen of the Diplomatic newsletter that the administration's argument was "the flimsiest excuse for initiating a major attack on another country without congressional authorization, in violation of the UN Charter, in many decades."
During his early Saturday remarks announcing the attacks, President Donald Trump claimed that "imminent threats from the Iranian regime" against "the American people" drove him to act. But Kimball said that administration officials "provided absolutely no evidence" to back that assertion during the briefing.
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Following the start of Saturday's assault, which Trump explicitly characterized as a war aimed at overthrowing the Iranian government, unnamed administration officials began leaking the claim that Trump feared an Iranian attack on the massive US military buildup in the Middle East, prompting him to greenlight the bombing campaign in coordination with Israel and with a nudge from Saudi Arabia.
Kimball, in a social media post, took members of the US media to task for echoing the administration's narrative. "Reporters need to do more than stenography," he wrote in response to Punchbowl's Jake Sherman.
"The American people were lied to about Iraq. The American people are being lied to again today—and once again, it is ordinary people who will pay the price."
Trump and top administration officials also repeated the longstanding claim from US warhawks that Iran is bent on developing a nuclear weapon, something Iranian leaders have publicly denied—including during recent diplomatic talks. Neither US intelligence assessments nor international nuclear watchdogs have produced evidence indicating that Iran is moving rapidly in the direction of nukes, as claimed by the administration.
Rozen noted that some remarks from administration officials during Saturday's briefing "suggested Trump’s negotiators"—a team that included Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff—"may not have had the expertise or experience to understand the Iranian proposal to curb its nuclear program." Rozen reported that one administration official kept misstating the acronym for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.
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In a lengthy social media post, Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted war was necessary because Iran "refused to make a deal" and because the Iranian government "has targeted and killed Americans," hardly the claim of an imminent threat push by the president and other administration officials.
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The top Democrats in the US Congress, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, faced backlash on Saturday over what critics described as tepid, equivocal responses to President Donald Trump's illegal assault on Iran—and for slowwalking efforts to prevent the war before the bombing began.
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This is a disgusting and cowardly statement handwringing about process and the need for a briefing.
No you idiot. This war is a horror and a disaster and must be directly opposed. Any Democrat who can’t say that needs to resign and ESPECIALLY the ones in leadership. https://t.co/CdZoEyNkOy
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) February 28, 2026
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has been floated as a possible 2028 challenger to Schumer, said Saturday that "the American people are once again dragged into a war they did not want by a president who does not care about the long-term consequences of his actions."
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Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was more blunt.
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