Recapping the 11th Annual National Whistleblower Day on Capitol Hill
By • August 1, 2024 0 521
The National Whistleblower Center (NWC) hosted its 11th annual National Whistleblower Day celebration on Tuesday, July 30 on Capitol Hill. At the Russell Senate Office Building’s Kennedy Caucus Room, attendees had the opportunity to hear from whistleblowers and their advocates alike in celebration of the whistleblower community’s unique camaraderie and resilience.
NWC’s Executive Director Siri Turner served as the Master of Ceremonies with the assistance of whistleblowers Jane Turner (FBI) and Dr. Toni Savage (Army Corps). The event featured a number of speakers, including Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR)—co-chairs of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus—as well as NWC Board Chairman Stephen Kohn from Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, the best law firm specializing in whistleblower protection in the world.
During the ceremony, the NWC honored Dr. Jeffrey Wigand with the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. Wigand blew the whistle on the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in the 1990s for their flagrant misrepresentation of the harmful, addictive nature of tobacco products. Though Brown & Williamson tasked Dr. Wigand with the objective of developing safer cigarettes when he assumed the role of Vice President of Research in 1989, the project unraveled in 1993 and Wigand was subsequently fired.
Following his termination, Brown & Williamson bullied Wigand into signing a lifetime confidentiality agreement. Despite having signed the NDA, Wigand appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in 1996 to expose the rampant corruption underpinning the tobacco industry. Three years later, his groundbreaking story of public service got the Hollywood treatment with ‘The Insider’ (1999) starring Russell Crowe. According to Wigand, the film is “100 percent on target.”
“Dr. Wigand, just like those sailors and marines, went forward,” said Stephen Kohn while introducing the Lifetime Achievement Award honoree. “He paid a price, tremendous retaliation, but he went forward. He saved probably millions of lives.”
Dr. Wigand concluded his speech with two hoots of a physical whistle, but he wasn’t the only individual who blew the whistle live at Tuesday’s ceremony. Having recently come into possession of the production records from an Ethiopian plane which had ultimately crashed, Boeing whistleblower Ed Pierson used his time at the podium to disclose the concerning details he found within said documents.
“About a month ago I received some documents,” Pierson said. “So, since it’s whistleblower day, I thought I’d do some whistleblowing.”
Shockingly, these records identified numerous quality shortcomings which jeopardized the safety of the aircraft, meaning it should have never been allowed to take flight in the first place.
“These reports clearly show that this plane, when it was being built, had lots of electrical problems,” Pierson said. “They were having all kinds of problems with parts, quality control, and as an aviator, as a person who flew in the military, I know how even a small mistake could cause a tragedy.”
In between speeches, Turner and Dr. Savage took the time to recognize a list of whistleblowers in attendance who had made tremendous contributions to public service as a result of their bravery. Two of these whistleblowers included Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver who spoke at National Whistleblower Day in 2023.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) at National Whistleblower Day. Courtesy of Karen Sayre and Eikon Photo.
Griffith and Carver blew the whistle on Eric C. Conn, an aptly named Kentucky attorney responsible for stealing over half a billion dollars from the Social Security Administration by utilizing a web of corrupt judges, doctors, and lawyers to capitalize off of disability cases. Both women lost their jobs with the Social Security Administration as a result. Additionally, during her speech at National Whistleblower day last year, Carver even recounted having had her car’s “tires slashed” and “brake lines cut.” Documentary filmmakers Brian Lazarte and James Lee Hernandez who also directed ‘McMillion$’ (2020) for HBO recently brought Griffith and Carver’s story to the screen in a four-part documentary series entitled ‘The Big Conn’ (2022) for Apple TV+.
In an interview with The Georgetowner, Griffith and Carver reiterated the necessity of having events like National Whistleblower Day which re-emphasize the strength and the support that can be found within the whistleblowing community.
“It’s so important, because when Sarah and I were going through this, we did not know about National Whistleblower Center, Whistleblowers of America—we didn’t know about any of those, and so we were really just the two of us,” Griffith said. “It’s worse for whistleblowers who are single whistleblowers that don’t have those resources. These are people that can put you into touch with appropriate attorneys, they can put you into touch with the House Ombuds’s Office, they can put you in touch with a million different resources that we didn’t have at that time that whistleblowers urgently need.”
One young whistleblower who—after having a similar experience to Carver and Griffith—is now working to make the path to speak out against injustice a little bit easier is Austin Handle, the Vice-Chair of the Board at The Lamplighter Project. Handle was fired from his job as a police officer with the Dunwoody Police Department in Dunwoody, GA for challenging the authority of his supervisor who was sexually harassing other officers. After feeling “alone” and “depressed” in the aftermath of his wrongful termination, Handle took to TikTok to share his story under the username Officer ASH. Since sharing his story, Handle has garnered a following of over 200,000.
“I don’t know when I woke up and decided to fight, but it happened,” Handle said. “I took that TikTok following of like 10,000 people at the time and I started posting about her story and it very quickly grew. I was surprised to learn that we had a power that the city didn’t have, and that was the court of public opinion.”
During some of the lowest moments of his whistleblowing journey, Handle turned to his whistleblower community for support—namely moderator Jane Turner.
“While I was out trying to find myself, I spoke to Ms. Jane Turner who reached out to me and gave me the time of day to listen to my entire story and tell me the most important thing I ever heard which was that that never should have happened to me—that I was a good police officer, and I never should have been fired,” Handle said. “And that was when I learned the power of listening to a whistleblower just to tell them that, so they know that what they did was right. Because we live in a world where they’re very confused. We live in a world where, every time you speak up, people tell you that you’re not supposed to or that it’s not the right time or that it’s not the right place.”
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) at National Whistleblower Day. Courtesy of Karen Sayre and Eikon Photo.
Dr. Cassandra McDonald is a two-time healthcare whistleblower who has also founded two branches of the NAACP in Ohio: one in Cuyahoga County and one in Euclid. She had the chance to chat with Handle following his speech, and for her, their conversation was a powerful one.
“As a civil human rights leader, I advocate against police brutality, so for me to see an officer who is agreeing with what I’m saying that these things are happening, this whistleblower event to me was more than just a whistleblower event,” Dr. McDonald said. “It made me realize, and I’m sure a lot of people did too, that no matter how different we seem, the agenda is the same, which is that when somebody does something that’s wrong, you need to say what it is. It doesn’t matter what uniform, what color, whatever—what’s wrong is wrong.”
After having heard from whistleblowers and their advocates across industries and generations, NWC Executive Director Siri Turner concluded the event on a poignant, hopeful note:
“I am going to close with the reminder that, regardless of what we experience, what we witness, nothing is insurmountable,” Turner said. “Whistleblowers remind us that even in the darkest times there can be light, but let’s also remember that, even in the light, there can be darkness, and no institution should be above scrutiny.”
A recording of the entire ceremony with closed captioning is available on C-SPAN.
