The Federal Bureau of Investigation has unexpectedly made public the results of a confidential annual employee questionnaire, including a survey on the three year performance of former director James Comey.
Covering a three year period from 2015 -2017, the survey evaluated Comey’s flexibility and adaptability, initiative, integrity, resilience, team building and communication skills among other criteria, using a scale of 1-5.
Between 2015 and 2017, Comey score under “Represents the FBI well’” grew and then fell, from 4.97 in 2015, to 5.00 in 2016 to 4.66 in 2017, shows the survey released by the FBI Records Vault Twitter account on Tuesday.
According to the results, Comey showed high marks for flexibility and adaptability, integrity, resilience, team building and organizing scoring 4 points and above in response to dozens of questions from “handles hard questions well” to “understands the big picture” to “treats people fairly.”
Lower marks appeared when it came to questions over “engaging in meaningful conversations” about performance or development, scoring 3.78 in 2017 up from 3.76 in 2016, or addressing “leaders or employees who are struggling” which fell from 4.43 in 2015 down to 3.84 in 2017.
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The release comes four months after President Donald Trump fired Comey on May 9, at the recommendation of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
In a memorandum to Session, Rosenstein wrote that over the past year, “the FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice.”
Rosenstein wrote that he could not defend Comey’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails. Comey was criticized for making several public announcements about probes into Clinton’s emails which was seen by many as not the function of an FBI director.
“Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives,” Rosenstein wrote in his memo to Sessions.
The White House justified the decision by saying that Comey was not effectively leading the Bureau. Trump’s critics accused him of seeking to derail the FBI’s investigation into allegations that Russia somehow interfered in the 2016 US election.
The annual questionnaire, known as the “Field Office and Headquarters Climate Survey Results,” asks its 35,000 employees to weigh in to illuminate workplace problems at the agency. The FBI uses the data to help improve current leadership, pick new ones, and encourages employee thoughts on how the FBI can improve.
Previously, employee survey data would be released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, such as the one filed by the Washington Post in 2015.
