Can a congressional inquiry actually speed up an adjudication? I’ve read mixed answers on this.
Also interested in the answer to this.
I am waiting in adjudication for an initial secret. My Congressperson’s office indicated that DoDCAF would also be notified of “congressional interest in this case”, though I don’t know if that means anything to them. My investigation stage was certainly expedited and my interviewer stated that the inquiry moved my file to the top of the stack.
I’ve heard some people get favorable results, but I guess it really depends on your congressman. I submitted an inquiry to my congressman (Beyer) over a month ago, but haven’t received a response which is really annoying.
Am currently writing to my senator to see if they can help.
Worked for me. Although I reached out to my Senator not my congressman.
I can third that response. My Representative’s office said that they were looking into it, but ultimately didn’t do anything despite giving me the run around for 2 months. My Senator’s office was able to help me rather immediately. They got a response from NBIB within a week of me contacting them.
A word of advice: if they don’t ask you for very specific details (i.e. company, when you applied for clearance, clearance level, etc) then you should suspect that they don’t know what they are doing.
Are you awaiting adjudication or are you waiting for your BI to start? I know for a fact it makes your investigation go faster if you write your congressman/Senator.
I contacted my senator from Virginia and his office was great. Seems like Senators are more inclined to help cause they are on committees that deal with clearance issues and DoD committees, so they have alot of pull.
When I get a Congressional interest case it is marked… in no special manner. There are numerous ways a case moves to the head of the line starting with being designated a priority case (i.e. the Agency paid more for the case to be completed quicker).
From my view, a Congressional interest case simply gets the open items assigned to an investigator. There are no special instructions like there are for expedited case types.
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Yea I emailed my senator from Virginia as well and he responded the next day! Like night and day compared to my districts congressman.
Va senator (Warner) is the ranking member on the Senate Intel committee, if your issue is with an IC, then he can make massive waves.
Or just wait your turn like everyone else. If the agency wanted you to get your clearance faster, they would PAY for it to move to the front.
It depends. If you are currently working at your job and can perform non-cleared work, or you have an interim, then there’s no need to spin the wheels of government. If you need the clearance in order to change jobs, it might be worthwhile to contact your Congresspeople so that you get on to your next stage in life a bit faster. This is more reasonable when you have been waiting a long time.
In my case, I was unemployed prior to accepting the CJO and my company, for whatever reason, neglected to expedite. I guess they felt very confident in me getting an interim. For whatever reason, I was not granted an interim, and after 5 months of waiting, I contacted my Congressperson per my FSO’s suggestion. It wasn’t worth me waiting any more months partially employed.
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Thor, there’s nothing wrong with asking our senators/congressmen for help. That’s what we PAY them to do. If it wasn’t for my senator, my investigation would still be in a pile somewhere.
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When you do that others who have been waiting are pushed even further down. If the company wanted you to have an expedited clearance they would make it happen.