Long story, so please bear with me.
In March 2019, I accepted a CJO with a three letter agency. In October 2019, I received a letter from them stating that my conditional offer had been rescinded due to “alcohol abuse.” I have never had any legal or personal problems with alcohol, so how they arrived at this conclusion is beyond me. It seemed like an absurdly bogus finding (still does) and I vehemently disagreed with their determination, so I filed an appeal. The appeal was unfortunately unsuccessful. I filed a Privacy Act request several months after this occurred but of course, in typical government fashion, they have not yet replied to me.
I recently accepted another offer with a different agency (redemption!). My SF86 and fingerprints have been submitted (they haven’t told me if I will need to undergo another polygraph since I passed my previous one and it was administered less than two years ago), so I am now just waiting to be contacted for my subject interview. As long as I am transparent about the previous suitability issue, do you think it will pose a problem for me? As I said, I have no idea how this determination was made as my Privacy Act request has not been returned.
If anyone has any insight, I would appreciate it.
Not sure if this even counts as insight, but I seem to recall being asked about the last time I was “intoxicated” with no specific definition of what that meant. If we look at the legal limits for driving under the influence, that can be as low as 0.08% which could be one drink depending on circumstances.
Anyway, there was someone else on here who reported having problems because he (or maybe it was a she) drank to “intoxication” too often.
No idea if that is relevant to your situation but it seems odd that they would dig so deep when there was no DUI or discipline or anything. I guess all you can do is be up front about it and answer any questions to the best of your knowledge.
Thanks for your reply. Yeah, I think you’re probably right. I also recall them asking me how many drinks it took me to become “intoxicated.” I don’t recall how I answered, but maybe their determination is derived from this. I have spoken to some folks who shared your opinion about it being a strange determination. Unfortunately, like I said, I have no clue how they came to this conclusion since they haven’t yet replied to my privacy act request.
Since this all took place nearly two years, I’m hoping the Agency I accepted a CJO with doesn’t weigh it too heavily, especially since there is very little evidence to back up such a conclusion. Other than this very opaque blunder, I am an exemplary candidate. 800 credit score, no criminal record, no mental health history, very little foreign travel, minimal foreign contacts, etc.
I went through a similar experience with the exception that my appeal was actually successful. To my dismay, every clearance processing I’ve been through afterward has not produce any results. The process just drags on for no obvious reason and no explanation. And I am still waiting …
Are you referring to your reinvestigations? It sounds like you were cleared after your appeal?
No, I was not. That particular agency does not grant you a clearance or a job after a successful appeal. Go figure!
Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. But it sounds like typical incompetence, unfortunately.
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