(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Sen. Chuck Grassley has demanded answers from FBI Director Christopher Wray about the abrupt departure of his former third-in-command, Jeffrey Sallet, who retired from the bureau amidst a DOJ Inspector General investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct.
Grassley’s questions about Sallet were included in a letter that blasted the FBI for failing to provide information about how hundreds of FBI officials have voluntarily retired or resigned to evade accountability for sexual misconduct allegations. Grassley noted the “supreme irony” of how Sallet commissioned an investigation into this matter, while he was under investigation himself for similar conduct.
“Apparently, one of the reasons DOJ and its component agencies can’t straighten out their problems of workplace harassment is that the fox is guarding the hen house,” Grassley wrote.
Today, Sen. Chuck Grassley asked the FBI about the abrupt departure of its former 3rd-in-command, Jeffrey Sallet.
I first exposed Sallet in January, and for 9 months have been the only person writing about him. It's good to see Congress finally catching up to Headline USA dot… pic.twitter.com/oRpcHiAZNE
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 11, 2024
“The supreme irony of [then-Executive Assistant Director of the Human Resources Branch, Jeffrey] Sallet requesting the [Office of Disciplinary Appeals] review of senior officials retiring or resigning to avoid disciplinary action is that ‘Sallet left the FBI and federal service while this investigation was ongoing.’”
Sallet’s alleged misconduct was first publicly exposed by Headline USA in January—thanks to the work of an FBI whistleblower named Michael Zummer, who was suing the Justice Department for records about Sallet’s alleged misconduct. As this publication reported, Sallet was promoted to the FBI’s third-highest position in February 2021, only to abruptly leave less than a year later—amidst the DOJ-OIG investigation into his conduct.
“After learning about Sallet’s retirement, I heard from various current and former FBI employees that allegations of sexual impropriety against Sallet had caused him to retire,” Zummer said in a sworn declaration accompanying his lawsuit.
In August, Headline USA exclusively obtained a DOJ-OIG report about Sallet’s allegations, which the DOJ was forced to disclose as a result of Zummer’s lawsuit. The report was later released on the DOJ-OIG’s website, which is presumably how Grassley found it.
The conduct described in the DOJ-OIG report was damning.
For instance, Sallet bragged to a female colleague about having a Texas oil billionaire friend with a private jet. The heavily redacted report, which investigated sexual-misconduct allegations against Sallet, further states that Sallet invited the female colleague to join his jet-setting billionaire friend’s “harem” in June 2020.
In another instance, Sallet flirted with a colleague as the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising was unfolding—suggesting that the bureau wasn’t taking the incident as seriously as it would later claim.
According to the report, a female FBI employee whose name was redacted stated that she was in Sallet’s office on Jan. 6.
“She looked out the window to see the crowds of people on Pennsylvania Avenue and commented on the large number of people and flags. Sallet allegedly turned to her and said, ‘How many of those guys are you thinking you’d like to date? That’s your type isn’t it?’” the DOJ-OIG report stated.
In response to the newly unearthed report, Sallet’s attorney, Douglas Brooks, told Headline USA in August that his client was not found responsible for sexual harassment. To Brooks’s point, Sallet was found to have violated the DOJ’s “Zero Tolerance Policy,” which does not require that conduct be “severe or pervasive” in order to be deemed actionable.
Grassley now seeks more info on Sallet and the other cases of FBI sexual misconduct.
“What disciplinary action did the FBI take against Jeffery Sallet considering the HHS OIG memo? If none, why none? Is Sallet currently collecting his federal pension or other retirement benefits? Did he receive a monetary bonus while under inquiry or investigation?” Grassley asked, demanding answers to those and other questions by Oct. 24.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
