In a report by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had sex with prostitutes overseas then later denied it in lie detector tests.
The report says that four FBI officials had sex with prostitutes while posted overseas, while a fifth also tried to — and all but one “lacked candor” about it during interviews and lie-detector tests.
An official probe was launched after the FBI raised the alarm that “multiple then FBI officials solicited, engaged in, and/or procured commercial sex,” a DOJ report said Tuesday.
Two of the officials were also accused of being involved in delivering “a package containing approximately 100 white pills” to a “foreign law enforcement officer,” the report said, without elaboration.
The report did not name the five FBI agents, but it says two have resigned, two retired and one was removed during the investigation.
A sixth agent accused of breaking policy by failing to report colleagues’ misconduct still works for the bureau, which vowed to “take all appropriate disciplinary actions” against the employee.
The report does not detail when or where the dalliances occurred. However, the FBI said it involved “employees previously working overseas in various FBI Legal Attaché Offices” and was referred to the DOJ in 2018.
Tuesday’s report said the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) had “substantiated” allegations “that four FBI officials solicited, procured, and accepted commercial sex overseas,” while a fifth “solicited” sex.
Their actions were all “in violation of DOJ and FBI policies.”
The investigation “also found that four of those officials lacked candor about their interactions with prostitutes and other misconduct during OIG compelled interviews and compelled polygraph examinations,” the report said, again in violation of policies.
One of them was outright accused of having “made false statements” when he “denied having engaged in sex acts with a prostitute,” the report said, noting it was “in violation of federal law.”
All five then failed to report the misconduct as well as “contact or relationships with foreign nationals,” both also in violation of FBI policies, the investigation ruled.
One also “lacked candor” when he “denied observing or placing pills in a package to be delivered to a foreign law enforcement officer,” while another “failed to report having been provided such a package.”
The report did not say what the pills were, or who they were given to.
The Inspector General’s Office said it handed its findings to the FBI for “appropriate action.”
The FBI said it “appreciates the Office of Inspector General’s thorough investigation into the reported misconduct by several former employees.”
“We have already completed numerous measures during the OIG’s investigation to ensure this type of behavior does not happen again,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI added that agents “assigned around the world” are “essential assets to our nation’s security, the protection of the American people and effectively building critical relationships with our foreign partners.”
“The majority of our personnel, wherever they are stationed, represent the FBI with the utmost honor and respect,” the bureau said.
“We will not tolerate these few individuals, who chose to disregard their oath and the public we serve, tarnishing the good work the rest of the FBI accomplishes each and every day.”
The bureau declined to say if the probe had been tied in any way to a similar scandal back in 2012, six years before it called on the Department of Justice to launch its just-completed investigation.
That had also involved five federal agents — two Secret Service supervisors and three elite agents — who were accused of bringing prostitutes back to their hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, ahead of a visit by then-President Obama.
