WASHINGTON, D.C. – Only one in 94 federal whistleblower reports are investigated, an 88% collapse since 2018. This analysis, conducted by the Law Office of Justin Schnitzer, draws from 14 years of U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) data. Normally spread across individual OSC reports, the multi-year data set is presented here together for the first time.
In 2025, only 27 of the 2,535 whistleblower reports submitted to OSC were referred for investigation, a rate of just 1.1%. At the same time, complaints of retaliation and other prohibited personnel practices have exploded. OSC received 6,572 new complaints in 2025, shattering the previous record of 4,168 in 2018. Complaint volume jumped 64% between 2024 and 2025 alone, coinciding with the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) push for mass workforce reductions.
The data shows a systematic decline. OSC has been slashing its investigation targets: from 60 referrals in FY 2024, to 25 in FY 2025, to a planned 20 in FY 2026.
“When only 1% of whistleblower disclosures are investigated, the federal oversight system isn’t just backlogged. It has functionally collapsed,” said federal employment attorney Justin Schnitzer.
“We are seeing a record-breaking surge in complaints of retaliation and other prohibited personnel practices, yet the mechanism intended to protect the public interest is effectively being shuttered. This creates a ‘black hole’ where government wrongdoing can flourish without accountability.”
Other key findings include:
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Favorable outcomes for whistleblowers fell to 397 in FY 2025, down from 450 the prior year—even as complaint volume surged 64%.
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Only 30 cases of wrongdoing were substantiated in FY 2025, down from 34 in 2024 and 44 in 2023.
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Rapid case closures at the intake stage, not investigation, account for OSC’s high processing-speed metrics.
Journalists and researchers are welcome to use this dataset and its accompanying charts for their reporting with proper attribution and a link to the research: https://www.fedelaw.com/whistleblower-data/.
Note to Editors on Data Sourcing:
This 14-year analysis was compiled using publicly available U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) annual reports. Following the compilation of this data, the OSC’s FY 2025 Performance and Accountability Report was removed from the agency’s public-facing website. An archived copy of the original government document is hosted alongside the full dataset at https://www.fedelaw.com/whistleblower-data/.
The data was compiled from publicly available OSC annual reports. The full dataset, spanning FY 2012 through FY 2025, is available at the Law Office of Justin Schnitzer’s website.
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