This top Pentagon official is on the street after two secret -- and illegal -- investigations
Warren S. Whitlock, the federal civilian officer assigned to get the U.S. Army moving on racial diversity issues, was fired after two secret, unauthorized investigations.
The firing was justified by the Army because of one erroneous keystroke on his Army computer.
Whitlock never got a chance to defend himself before he was fired in January 2019. In part that was because a Trump appointee covered up the improper nature of one of the investigations by requesting retroactive approval. No one told Whitlock he was the subject of so-called 15-6 investigations, named for an Army regulation number. Army officers and civilians dread the 15-6 as a career killer. Only when he was about to be fired did Whitlock learn of the secret investigations and months of secret machinations against him.
Whitlock, with degrees from Princeton and Columbia, had a successful career as a diversity officer in the federal Transportation Department. He took on challenging assignments others believed were impossible and produced success. He was asked to become one of the Army's highest-ranking Black civilians during the waning days of the Obama administration to shake up what the Obama people considered an underperforming equal opportunity and diversity office. He tackled problems that had languished since George Herbert Walker Bush was commander in chief nearly 30 years ago.
This is the second of two articles about the firing of Pentagon official Warren S. Whitlock. In Part One, we showed how racists in the Trump administration targeted the career public servant and dismissed him without a pension or health care.
But then the racist Trump administration came in. Twice, Whitlock was the subject of secret investigations as both his boss and a subordinate worked to oust him.
The first investigation was over arrangements for the annual Black Engineer of the Year Award. Whitlock's civilian boss, Diane Randon, questioned his choice of a highly qualified and retiring Army lieutenant colonel for the award. Randon also singled out Whitlock in quietly directing her subordinates to keep tabs on comings and goings.
Undercut by a Subordinate
A secret report by a two-star general severely criticized Whitlock. But it also showed that one award's package was submitted late because Seema Salter, a subordinate who despised Whitlock and behind his back called him a "motherfucker," had delayed getting her own award paperwork to Whitlock. There is no record of an investigation into why the subordinate delayed her actions and whether she did so to undermine her boss, whom she later bragged, testimony showed, she had gotten removed.
Another subordinate absolved Whitlock. Margo Barfield, Whitlock’s assistant, told him and Randon in a meeting in late 2017 that she was to blame for the problems in planning and arranging the Black Engineer of the Year award at the beginning of the year.
Barfield said she was “completely” responsible, Whitlock testified at his 2019 racial discrimination hearing. That contradicted Randon, who held only Whitlock at fault and used that assertion to arrange the unauthorized investigation.
Randon told the Army inspector general that she was disappointed in Whitlock’s leadership because he didn’t offer to take responsibility for what she called Barfield’s error. Gratuitously, Randon added in the interview that she was "wanting Mr. Whitlock to just throw himself on a grenade..."
After Whitlock was fired his lawyer, David Shapiro, said Randon's conduct was reprehensible. He told DCReport that the secret monitoring of Whitlock's time and attendance ordered by Randon was "racist."
Boss Fails to Review Performance
Randon's duties included evaluating Whitlock's performance. But Randon failed to do the mandatory mid-year evaluation in 2017 which, assuming she found his performance wanting, would have officially set in motion training and counseling that could have preserved Whitlock's job. Instead, her first evaluation, filed Nov. 28, 2017, gave him a 1, the lowest possible rating on a scale of 1 to 5 used for Senior Executive Service civil servants.
“I was floored. No one gets a 1,” Whitlock said. Pentagon officials said they could not find another example of a Senior Executive Service member given that bottom score.
Before Randon’s evaluation, Whitlock had been consistently graded a 4, including his first evaluation at the Pentagon in late 2016 when Barack Obama was still president.
In December 2017, while Whitlock fulminated over his lousy job rating, still unaware he was the focus of the two secret investigations, Army lawyers determined that the Randon investigating officer “exceeded the scope of the investigation by investigating Mr. Whitlock without notifying” the Army inspector general.
Trump Appointee Covers Up
“It was ascertained that the AR 15-6 investigation... was never approved by the appointing authority,” the lawyers wrote. Their findings became moot because of a curious action by Raymond T. Horoho, whom Donald Trump had named acting assistant secretary of the Army for Manpower and Personnel, the Army’s top civilian for personnel.
In September 2017, Horoho wrote a memo to the judge advocate general’s office, providing cover for Randon.
Horoho requested “approval to designate Ms. Diane Randon as the approval officer for the subject investigation as an exception to Army Regulation” requiring advance approval by her superiors. Horoho noted that she had “appointed” the investigation months earlier on March 15, 2017. In effect, Horoho wanted approval to back-date the unauthorized first investigation and a second unauthorized probe, the kind of rules abuse that has been common in the Trump administration.
The request mattered if Randon was to be let off the hook. So what discipline was meted out to Randon for arranging an unauthorized investigation? The white woman’s behavior was thoroughly reviewed and addressed with a "teach and train memorandum” sent to Randon.
Meanwhile, Whitlock had no idea he had been investigated, no idea what General Leslie Purser had concluded in her investigative report and thus had no opportunity to challenge the negative findings of his performance. “I was a dead man walking and I was the only person who did not know it,” he said three years later.
In January 2018 Whitlock filed a racial discrimination complaint against Randon, still unaware of the 15-6 investigation and report, but upset over what he regarded as her foul treatment of him.
Unequal Treatment
There was one more crisis developing that would seal Whitlock’s fate. This involved the subordinate who had delayed the award paperwork, Seema Salter, and her good friend, another old-timer in the Army equal opportunity office, Spurgeon Moore.
Moore’s wife Patricia entered hospice care. Moore applied for the government’s Voluntary Leave Transfer Program on Oct. 30, 2018. If granted, it would allow him almost unlimited paid leave to spend with his wife in her final days. The leave time costs taxpayers nothing because federal employees donate their own leave hours.
Moore’s wife died the next day. That ended his eligibility for the voluntary leave program. However, her death made him eligible for another benefit, the Army Bereavement Leave.
Despite this, four days after Patricia Moore’s death his request for the donated leave-time program was approved. The approval was signed by his longtime friend and colleague Salter, even though she lacked authority to approve the request. It should have been signed by Whitlock, as Moore's superior, under Army regulations. Whitlock knew nothing of the improper approval.
“Spurgeon should have dropped" voluntary leave application, Whitlock said, “and applied for the military’s bereavement leave.”
Ordered Back to Work
Bereavement leave would have entitled Moore to about a month off, plus extra days for memorial services and administrative details. Whitlock said Moore basically disappeared.“I didn’t see him in the office November or December, though I would hear he came in several times when I wasn’t there,” Whitlock said. He added he sent numerous emails and left voicemails. “It looked like he was ducking my calls.”
Despite repeated attempts, Moore could not be reached for comment.
Moore let Randon and Salter know he planned to delay his return until after his wife’s burial at Arlington Cemetery. Because of a burial backlog that was not expected until early March, more than four months after his wife’s death. Whitlock noted that this was far in excess of what he was entitled to under bereavement leave.
Around Valentine’s Day, after discussing the situation with both an Army personnel office and with Trump appointee Horoho, Whitlock sent Moore a formal “return to duty” notice.
Randon Undercuts Whitlock
Randon quickly tried to get that notice rescinded, she later confirmed under oath. She also barraged Whitlock with emails and phone calls asking what he was doing and to withdraw the return to duty notice, according to testimony during the merit systems board hearing.
Randon testified Moore advised her that he was not emotionally stable enough to return to work. She added that Horoho, who had approved the return to work notice, also was worried about Moore. What Horoho, who was later relieved of his job for unrelated reasons, actually thought is unknown because he was never called to testify.
Meanwhile, at the Army personnel office, the staff that regularly handled requests for voluntary leave became aware an employee in the Army Diversity and Leadership Office was still on extended voluntary leave to help with his wife’s hospice care event though she had died more than two months earlier.
Salter's 'Illegal' Signing
Vieanna Huertas, chief of the Civilian Human Resources Agency division, testified she was surprised to discover that Salter had signed Moore’s special leave request for two reasons. The first was that Salter lacked authority to approve the request. The second was that Salter signed after the date of death.
Huertas was blunt about Salter’s actions. The approval was “illegal,” a “falsification” of official records. When Moore’s family “emergency had ended… he should have been taken off of the program.”
Meanwhile, Salter's annual performance rating was upgraded to the highest possible level even though she had improperly signed off on Moore’s extended leave. Whitlock signed the document, telling DCReport he did so at Randon's insistence.
Discrimination Claim
A month earlier, on Jan. 5, 2018, Whitlock had filed his racial discrimination complaint. Federal law was supposed to shield him from retaliation while his case was pending.
Nonetheless, in March 2018, a month after he tangled with Randon over Moore's leave and return to duty notice, Whitlock was suddenly reassigned by Trump’s then deputy secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, to a job at Fort McNair in Washington, across the Potomac River from the Pentagon. Whitlock and David Shapiro, his lawyer, said it was punitive and retaliatory since he had no significant or relevant duties at the Center for Military History.
Horoho's office, after work on a Friday, directed Whitlock to meet Horoho at the Pentagon on Monday morning at 8:30. Horoho personally handed Whitlock his transfer notice, which was dated the previous Friday. Whitlock immediately left for Fort McNair. He arrived just as a call from Horoho's office advised Fort McNair officials of Whitlock's transfer.
Barred from His Old Office
When Whitlock went to his Pentagon office to retrieve personal effects, including medical records and legal documents, he was stopped. “I was called into and excoriated by another Trump appointee who said I was never to come back into the Pentagon.”
Six months after his transfer, in September 2018, Whitlock received a formal notice of proposed termination. The stated reasons were “lack of candor” and “conduct unbecoming an Army senior executive.” Whitlock was still unaware of the general's report.
In December, he received the formal proposal of removal. Under its terms, Whitlock wouldn’t just lose his Army job; he was to be removed from the federal Senior Executive Service just a few years short of eligibility for a pension.
While Whitlock was twiddling his thumbs at Fort McNair, the Army appointed someone to his old job promoting diversity. It was Spurgeon Moore who became, in an acting capacity, "Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Army for Diversity" —Whitlock’s old job. Evidently taking advantage of a special leave time program for which Moore was ineligible was of no consequence compared with Whitlock's one mistaken keystroke.
Fired
On January 9, 2019, Whitlock was terminated. The Trump administration simply ignored the law that’s supposed to protect people who file a credible claim of racial discrimination.
Whitlock said he was devastated. He was too embarrassed to tell his aged mother. She was also a Columbia University graduate who retired after a distinguished career at the Central Intelligence Agency.
Whitlock didn't contact former Obama appointees at the Pentagon for advice, either. “I decided I was going to fight this. I had been a hard worker, I accomplished difficult things, I was honest. I didn’t even get the basic official counseling sessions or reprimands or anything that would give me a chance to resign first.”
Weeks later, in February 2019, the next annual Black Engineer of the Year Award conference was held in Washington. Among those attending was a much higher level official than Whitlock—Clarence Johnson, director of the Defense Department Diversity Center.
Johnson testified at Whitlock’s hearings that Salter went around introducing Spurgeon Moore as her new boss. Johnson said Salter bragged about her success in getting a boss she liked to replace Whitlock. “I got the other motherfucker back.”
Salter testified later that she didn’t say that at that event.
In June 2019 the Merit Systems Protection Board judge finally heard testimony. Whitlock’s lawyer, David Shapiro had warned him that board judges almost never deny the government’s position. The system, set up originally to shield whistleblowers, has morphed over time into a legal sword that effectively thwarts federal workers who challenge their bosses.
Sure enough, the administrative judge ruled for the Army. She said that she didn’t find Whitlock’s defense that he accidentally emailed Salter’s draft evaluation “credible.” She said nothing about the severe penalty of discharge over a keystroke.
Appeal to District Court
Whitlock exercised his right to appeal the administrative law judge’s decision and go to trial in federal district court.
In early 2020, the Army tried to have Whitlock’s case moved from the mostly Black and heavily Democratic District of Columbia to Northern Virginia, where juries have been shown again and again to be very government-friendly. Indeed, it is the government’s preferred jurisdiction in terrorism cases because its pool of potential jurors lean strongly in favor of whatever position the government asserts.
In court papers, the Army argued that transferring the Whitlock case is proper because when Whitlock was fired he worked at the Pentagon, which is in Virginia.
That’s not true. Documents in evidence show clearly that Whitlock was at Fort McNair in the District of Columbia. Shapiro is opposing any transfer out of the district.
While his case drags on, Whitlock has managed to maintain a sense of humor.
In August, Whitlock received an email from the company sponsoring the 35th annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards to be held in February 2021. It was a reminder that he should submit nominations.
Whitlock laughed.
Diane Randon[/caption]
Renee Yeungling[/caption]
Renee Yuengling's testimony[/caption]
Seema Salter[/caption]
“I would suggest more training on effective leadership, but I do not believe he would comprehend the message,” Purser wrote. The general recommended that a formal reprimand be placed in Whitlock’s personnel file.
Diane Randon with Defense Sec. Mark Esper in 2018. (U.S. Army)[/caption]