The midst of a pandemic is not a great time to release an investigation you've been working on for months. This was the most challenging story I've ever reported so please allow me a thread https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/20/death-of-a-whistleblower-suicide-pentagon-office-inspector-general/

Steven Luke, an investigator at the Pentagon's watchdog approached Sen. Grassley's office to blow the whistle. In emails I obtained, Luke described feeling "bullied, berated, and belittled" by his supervisors to substantiate an investigation into a senior intelligence official.

As lead investigator, Luke didn't feel like there was enough evidence to stand up the allegations made against the official. His supervisors, he said in emails, felt differently.

“From the outset, everyone in my leadership chain suggested or directed that I should substantiate the primary allegation,” Luke wrote. This went on for months. (A spokeswoman for the watchdog office denied there was any undue pressure in this, or any case)

The case was ultimately closed, but the experience left Luke rattled. He felt sure that had he not stuck his neck out, the case would have been upheld, leaving an indelible stain on the official's decades-long record of government service. So he decided to blow the whistle.

He was not the first. Over the past decade dozens of whistleblowers have come forward to report concerns about the way the Pentagon's Office of Inspector General has handled investigations.

In 2016 the office, which is supposed to promote transparency and protect whistleblowers, was described by the independent Project on Government Oversight as having a "toxic" attitude towards internal whistleblowers.

Three weeks after he contacted Sen. Grassley's office, Steven Luke killed himself in the parking lot of the Inspector General's office building. He had been stalked by depression throughout his adult life. An Alexandria police investigation confirmed that it was suicide.

A FOIA request revealed that the Inspector General office did not conduct an internal investigation following Luke's death. Upon the advice of counsel, Grassley's office didn't purse the allegations made by Luke while the police investigation was pending.

In short, the allegations he made before his death have never been investigated.