Background: I had a ~14 month investigation for a clearance upgrade and have been in adjudication for ~3 months, I recently had an interview with an adjudicator and (kicking myself) it was only after that I requested and received my investigation from OPM.
I spent much of this evening gathering information to interpret the results and done pretty well. There no good, reasonably comprehensive source online. The FOIAed documents aren’t very much help if you don’t know what the various codes mean, and I’d like to help the curious and those in similar situations to me. Is there a good reason I shouldn’t post what I’ve got? Possibly to this board?
And on the reassurance front: my OPM assessment was A. This is the most positive OPM grade you can get while still having issues. Looking through the investigation I can see one problem was caused by factually inaccurate information provided by a health related organization. I believe I cleared that up during my recent interview, but now I have been told a psychiatric exam will be required. This surprised me because it doesn’t seem supported by the investigation, which had nothing derogatory to say about my mental health aside from acknowledging consulting a medical professional. My case looks quite clean to me. I think I must have rubbed the adjudicator the wrong way, or volunteered too much information? Can anyone provide reassuring anecdotes or statistics about a case OPM assessed as “A” being very unlikely to have a negative result?
Do not post investigative data or records on this site. The issue characterization on an investigation is just the initial review of case items conducted by OPM. It is just a basic indicator of the seriousness of issues present. The agency who requested the investigation has an adjudicator conduct a more thorough review and they might have to gather more information to resolve discrepancies. I have seen cases that came back from OPM as clean/no issues where it turns out they should have been a major issue case for falsification, and vice versa. Don’t get wrapped around the handle about it, let the process work and eventually you will get cleared.
I wasn’t thinking of posting investigative data or records, but rather guidance to interpret investigative data or records. Still not something you want on this board?
E.g. explanations with citations of:
Adjudication codes 1-11 on an INV 79A
OPM Assessment/seriousness codes A-E, F,G,Q,W, O,R and review levels 1-3
OPM investigation codes 1-14 and corresponding letters A-E, O, N. Where the adjudicative guidelines fit into the OPM scheme. How A-D can be downgraded with passage of time.
What the CM column on the list of items is, and what a R, P, or L mean in that context.
et al.
There are some things I don’t understand, e.g.:
OPM credit scores
What options aside from “Recommends” or “Does not have a condition…” are possible for some item types
I’d be curious if other people could weigh in on the ones I missed.
You should not post anything that is not available to the general public. Most of that information is for official use only by trained personnel security staff.