State Dept. Whistleblower Sued in Retaliation by John Kerry — and the Case Could Reveal Sordid Accusations of Department Misconduct

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The Blaze:

Richard “Rick” Higbie has spent more than a month under a barrage of financial attacks by the Northern District of Texas U.S. attorney’s office under the direction of the State Department. The attacks are an attempt to silence the government agent and they originate from the very people he has sworn an oath to protect.

Higbie is a distinguished 16-year veteran of the Diplomatic Security Services, the arm of the State Department that investigates crimes and provides protection to diplomats overseas.


Rick Higbie, second from the right, is a senior criminal investigator with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security within the State Department. Higbie was previously employed as a foreign service officer but following his daughter’s illness, he took legal measures against his employers. (TheBlaze)

But he has been battling his employers almost his entire career, starting when his then-infant daughter was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder and his supervisors suggested he quit his job.

Higbie said his government employers claimed that his child’s illness created a situation where he could not work overseas as a foreign service officer. When he fought back with a discrimination lawsuit, he began to feel the full force of the State Department coming down on him. The message: Don’t cross us.

Higbie first filed suit in 2001. He and the State Department finally reached a settlement four years later in 2005; Higbie currently is the lead criminal investigator within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s Dallas field office.

Everything seemed fine until 2008, when the harassment began again under a returning old guard that has continued to this day, Higbie’s attorneys told TheBlaze TV’s For the Record in the season premiere episode “Honor Fight: The Battle Inside the State Department.”

What started as a civil discrimination suit has evolved into a much larger crisis for the State Department, threatening to expose corruption, diplomatic cover-ups, sexual misconduct within the U.S. diplomatic corps and the failure by department brass to take action. After he helped a fellow whistleblower bring some of those allegations to light, four years’ of Higbie’s emails were deleted from his personal email account and several computers were stolen in a break-in at his attorney’s office in Dallas.

‘Discriminatory, Adverse Actions’

Logan Higbie was born in 1998. Diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis, a rare genetic disorder that causes noncancerous growths on the brain, skin and other vital organs. Her parents spent much of the next three years sitting beside their young daughter in the intensive care units at various children’s hospitals as she fought to stay alive.

Higbie said during that time, he was constantly harassed by his supervisors.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/PzThNZlnDJ4[/youtube]

He followed all of his agency’s requirements, filing complaints about what he described as a degrading work environment. But when all those avenues failed, he told TheBlaze, he had no choice but to initiate his first lawsuit.


Rick Higbie said his infant daughter’s rare genetic disorder prompted his superiors to suggest he quit his State Department job. He filed a discrimination complaint, setting off years of back-and-forth litigation. (Photo courtesy Rick Higbie)

It was 2001, and Higbie filed suit against his supervisors in Dallas, alleging he had suffered “discriminatory, adverse actions” at the hands of Tim Haley, the special agent in charge in the Houston field office, which oversaw the Dallas office, court records state.

At the time, Higbie charged that Haley wanted him to quit because his daughter’s illness interfered with his work. Higbie said Haley’s actions violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and filed his suit in federal court, which settled in 2005.

But a few years later in 2008, Higbie filed a grievance against his new supervisors, saying the harassment at work had been reignited by old enemies and new ones. The situation led Higbie to file a discrimination lawsuit in October 2011 against the State Department, then under the leadership of Hillary Clinton.

Higbie is appealing his case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Over the past month, the State Department, now led by Secretary John Kerry, has had a $13,000 lien placed on Higbie’s home to collect legal fees the government says it has incurred on the case currently under appeal. The department also placed a lien on the Florida home of Higbie’s father — also named Richard Higbie — though with the younger Higbie’s birthdate and Social Security number on the document.


A copy of the Justice Department’s demand that Rick Higbie reimburse the State Department for more than $13,000.

Why take such substantial action against Higbie? It’s “what was discovered during the course of his lawsuit that has senior government officials on edge,” said Damon Mathias, Higbie’s attorney who is representing him in his post-judgment collection for the $13,000.

“Basically it’s systematic bullying,” Mathias said of the State Department’s actions. Mathias said his client is a target of a government that wants to silence him, and the barrage of attacks is meant to exhaust him into dropping his lawsuit.

“The amount of this judgment is peanuts for the government and basically being a whistleblower – what was discovered as a result of his lawsuit – has made him a number of enemies,” Mathias said. “They are giving his case special attention because they are threatened.”

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