Hello,
You said you submitted documents showing that you were taking care of financial debt. Did you receive the SOR because you were delinquent on payments or because of the amount of debt you had?
Thanks in advance
Rueben,
Just to be clear, your response to the SOR will include a statement regarding your choice to have your case decided by a judge at a hearing or by a judge based on the written record (āFORMā). You have to submit a written response to the SOR, but you can simply admit the allegations in the SOR without offering any mitigation and present all your mitigation later at the hearing or as a written response to the FORM (File Of Relevant Materials). If you donāt do a good job on the SOR response, you foreclose any possibility of have the SOR withdrawn by the DOHA Chief DC and will only have a chance to convince one personāthe Administrative Judge (AJ). Two chances at a favorable decision are always better than one.
Although only one year of abstinence following 15 years of abuse is very weak mitigation; there are too many other factors that an AJ will consider in making a decision for me to give you an opinion. Similarly not all friendly/allied countries are equalāsome present a significant threat to US national security.
You can search the DOHA website (https://ogc.osd.mil/doha/industrial/) for written case decisions similar to yours and get an idea of how DOHA AJs decided those cases.
Good luck, Bill
Thank you. Would you be willing to do an analysis of my future case on a consulting basis? Iād like to get detailed feedback on my likelihood of success from someone other than a lawyer who may be inclined to give false hope for obvious reasons. If so please let me know. Simple review of the concerns that are likely to come up and the mitigationās I have in place. Would maybe save significant money doing so. Thanks.
Reuben: If youād like a consultation, please go to the FEDCAS website, register as a self-referred client, and select the āClearance Assessment.ā
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Hello Mr. henderson.
I am very thankful to have fallen onto this discussion thread.
I received my SOR yesterday and mine is Foreign Contacts as My father is foreign national and a politician there, my mother is a foreign national but she is here with a green card. my step mother who is foreign national, my half brother who is foreign national and works for a mining department in my country of origin.
I barely have a relation with my father and my half brother from my mother side we barely speak and the relationship is very casual.
My question; do you believe a statement will suffice, along with attachments (if so which types do you recommend) or do I choose to go to hearing?
this is for TS, itās been in line for adjudication since last June and only yesterday did i receive the SORā¦which is progress but i want to make sure I do it right because I have nothing to do with my country except my half brother and father with whom i really donāt have a relationship withā¦
I would be grateful for your help.
Florence,
The identity of the country is critical. Contact me off list through the FEDCAS website.
Bill
Hello,
If anyone knows what they might think would be great.
I got my SOA back in August and my reason was financial. It was for my 2012 and 2017 taxes. I had to request tax transcript for federal and state. I was able to get the 2017 forms for federal and state and those are all paid off. My 2012 was a dark time for me and I was going thru a divorce so when I submitted my clearance i said I do not remember if I submitted my taxes in 2012. So I was being honest. But I mailed 4506-t forms to the irs twice for 2012 and I have not received anything. So after my 3rd extension it was denied and I was told to send what I have. So all I could do is tell them that 2017 taxes are paid and my situation for 2012 but if the situation is negative that I will take care of it. Now since SOA was delivered yesterday. Should I still try to file my 2012 taxes even tho I am not sure if I filed or not or leave it? If I owe I will pay whatever I need to take care of the problem. Does anyone see any reason why I might get denied? Should I still file 2012 taxes or wait to hear an answer? Am I screwed or should I have nothing to worry about for my clearance? Thank you!!
Hereās what I would do for 2012 . . . First, look for an IRS office near you. If it is close enough, go visit with them and explain that you need to know if you filed in 2012. If you did file, you need a ātax return transcriptā. If you did not file, you need a ātax account transcriptā so that you can file. If you files, they will print documentation showing that you filed. If you did not, seek a professional to prepare your return for 2012 (it will be difficult to do yourself) file the return and provide a copy of the filed return as documentation.
If there is no office near you do the same on the phone but this will take longer and they will likely want to mail the information to you taking even longer.
Do this NOW, today, tomorrow, Friday . . . NOW . . . In a week or two, the IRS will be swamped with taxpayers on the phone and in person. You might wait on hold for several hours. Itās horrible dealing with the IRS during tax season.
If you need more help, I would be happy to talk with you. Making contact outside of these forums is exceptionally difficult to do though.
Can I ask a random/related question since you seem to be super knowledgeable? I found out my investigation was closed in November. I received an email from the security officer to come into the office for an in person meeting to discuss the investigation?
Is this good or bad news? I doubt they would bring someone in for a denial but since the case is closed Iām just confused/worried (the email was very vague), so Iām not sure what to think. Would love your insight. Thanks
Alex12,
There are three possible answers to your question. I would prefer to give you the one that pertains to your situation, but to do that I need to know whether your security officer is employed by a federal contractor or a big government agency or a very small government agency.
It is a large agency to answer your question! Thanks for your response. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Hi sorry to be a bug but very curious as to your answer. It is a large agency. Thanks so much!!
Large government agencies usually have a central adjudication facility (CAF) where personnel security specialist review background investigations and make clearance determinations (or preliminary clearance determinations) and the CAF is separate from the security office applicants deal with. The CAF communicates their decisions (but not the results of the investigation) to the local security office where the applicant is employed. Sometimes they need additional information from the applicant. So, if your security office is separate from your agencyās CAF, then CAF has either sent your security office a written request for information (RFI) or a letter of intent to deny clearance with a Statement of Reasons. The most likely reason they want you to go in person to the security office is because you will be required to sign a receipt acknowledging that you were given the document and the date you received it. This is important because you will have a specific amount of time to respond in writing to the RFI or SOR.
Can I give you some more info about my background to get your opinion?
I got a DUI when I was 18 (more than 15 yrs ago). After that went into the Navy (combat veteran), had exemplary service and was high up in the ranks, was honorably discharged. Around the time of getting honorably discharged, I self referred myself to rehab for alcohol. I was going through a bad divorce and my drinking was bad (was not ordered by anyone and just did it for myself). I was fully transparent on the SF 86 and Iām just nervous that they are going to try and make the drinking thing a trend when itās not and I never had any performance issues. Thought on this? Thanks again
Certain agencies classify more than 4 drinks at a time ābingeā drinking and if it occurs more than 2x a week its an issue. Nothing that cannot be mitigated but ensure that you arent currently consuming more than that when you are attempting to respond to that statement, if in fact this is the issue. The threshold is really low, especially for somebody coming out of the military.
Hi just a random question did you receive the SOR in person or via mail?
I can tell you about my timeline. My SOR was through DODCAF.
Had an incident report 12/17/2018.
There was an investigation.
My security manager received SOR 7/18/2019.
I personally did not receive SOR until 9/15/2019 (thats a long story and due to people not doing their jobs). I received my SOR via encrypted email.
I appealed it and submitted it electronically 10/12/
2019. It is no longer required to be sent by physical mail. It was forwarded to DODCAF 10/14/2019.
My TS/SCI was reinstated 12/12/2019.
Alex . . . You told us that your DUI was more than 15 years ago but you didnāt tell us when your discharge and rehab occurred. The DUI, as you likely know is pretty much meaningless at this point. The farther in the past the rehab was the better but the fact that you were self admitted and not court or otherwise directed will work strongly in your favor.
Thank you. It was back in 2016 for rehab and was not ordered (totally voluntary). I did have some debt at the time of my subject interview to which the investigator was impressed (at least he said itās less than what heās seen) to which I paid off immediately after the interview. I am just nervous because I really want this job and it would make life easier. Do you think that makes a difference?
If youāre asking for my opinion about whether your alcohol consumption issue will result in clearance denial, you didnāt provide enough information for me to form an opinion. Thereās a lot that goes into clearance decisions in cases like yours. How long ago did you successfully complete rehab? What was your diagnosis (dependence or abuse)? What recommendation did they make regarding future alcohol consumption? Have you followed their recommendation? Have you been involved in aftercare and to what extent? What was the frequency and amount of your alcohol consumption before and after rehab? To what extent can you obtain documentation to support all of this? Iām not suggesting you answer all these questions on this forum. You should seek professional security clearance assistance, if and when you receive an SOR or RFI. If you receive an RFI, you should immediately make a Privacy Act request for a copy of your investigative file. If you receive an SOR, there may be instructions with it that tell you how to request your investigative file, which may expedite your request. Asking for opinions on a forum like this is okay, but I donāt recommend relying on free advice on what to do about an RFI or SOR.
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