Jan. 2018 - Clearance denied (SCI Denial)
Feb. 2018 - SOR received
Mar. 2018 - SOR response sent
May 2018 - Denial upheld
Oct. 2018 - IC Access Appeals In-person Panel
Sep. 2018 - Denial upheld, no clearance according to JPAS
Jun. 2019 - Contractor puts me in for Secret (DOD position), separately, IC agency (same one that denied me) sends me conditional job offer.
Jul. 2019 - Interim Secret denied.
Dec. and Jan. 2019/2020 - FS Polygraph and Psych exam taken and passed. Still waiting on any
clearance decision.
EDIT: Just received word, security eligibility: Secret. I canāt believe this day has finally arrived. Iām beyond happy.
Seeking advice on my SOR package. (Contractor)
Received for financial reasons. I had 2x credit cards in charge-off status.
My SCI reinvestigation was completed Jan19 and all finances were addressed and documented. August 19 I was notified of SOR. My SSO advised me to fill out a response which I showed documentation that both accounts are in a re-payment plan and Iāve never missed or been late on a payment. I submitted all supporting documentation along with some character reference letters.
My SSO tells me thereās nothing I can do to find out where the package is in the process, and thereās no way to know when it will be reviewed. This is affecting my job obviously and the longer this drags out the more concerned I am about how long my employer will keep me on in a limited role.
Itās now coming up on Feb 2020; is it worth securing an attorney to find out what is going on?
Without getting into the nuts and bolts of my case. I was an contractor. Back in 2014 I was falsely accused of disabling Host based tools and giving myself unauthorized access to files. (Charge is 100% bullcrap) After not one but 2 OPM investigations , I was issued an SOR July 2018. I responded and requested a hearing. I finally had my Hearing April 2019 , During which Judge said repeatedly on and off record heād have a decision in 2-3 months. Whether I convinced the judge that allegations are false is a whole other story but my question isā¦ Itās now Feb. 2020. Iāve literally been fighting this case trying to get my clearance back for almost 6 years!!
Is there anything i can do at this point? I mean even if I did do it (which I didnāt) I would think mitigation for Misuse of IT Government equipment would be length of time. Is the Administrative judge taking 10 + months to render a decision a bad thing? Seriously what is taking so long, Either he believes I did it or not? Has anyone else experienced a 5 + year timeline?
Well . . . Nobody knows . . . But, you havenāt been fighting the SOR for six years. You recieved the SOR less than two years ago. It does tend to take a long time to get an in person hearing scheduled and your hearing was less then 12 months ago. Waiting a year for a decision is a long time but not unheard of.
If I were in your shoes, I would reach out to CAF and see what you status is.
Understood. Of course I meant the entire timeline when I say 6 years. Secret clearance was suspended back in 2014. For the first 6 months I didnāt even know why. I was let go of my position and was simply told āsuspicious activityā It wasnāt until I did a FOIA request for my JPAS records that I found out what I supposedly :ādidā. Just frustrating , Feel like iāve been screwed this entire time and when it comes to me, seems to always be massive delays. Iāve already called CAF twice. Once in late October and the only info they were able to give me was to confirm my case was the oldest on the judges docket. Laying waste to the āheās busy and have other cases before yours, First come , First serve excuseā I called again a month ago. I donāt want to keep calling seeming āimpatientā that may prompt a negative response from the judge. I was just wondering if waiting 10 months or more was typical. From all the cases I have researched , longest iāve seen so far that a person had to wait (even with cases similar to mine) was 8-9 months. I just donāt understand. Incident was ācommittedā April 2014. Just donāt understand why they wonāt get it over with.
So I have been here before re: SOR foreign contact mitigation.
last November, I submitted it to DOD CAF , requesting a response rather than hearing.
I contacted them in February for an update and was told that my case for transferred to DOHA. contacted DOHA via email and they told I will be scheduled for a hearing!
I didnāt ask for one and they wonāt tell me why I am getting a hearing. just to wait to be contacted when the hearing will be scheduled.
Now I want to know why and how long until the hearing is scheduled? What should I do to prepare?
This has been agonizingā¦ help!
OK . . . Thereās no appeal to an SOR without a hearing. You have two choices, you can have the hearing in front of an Administrative Law Judge or you can have your hearing āon the written recordā, where the governmentās lawyer writes up a brief for the judge, you write your response and the judge makes his decision. Either case would be transferred to DOHA. Thatās what they do.
So, there may have been a misunderstanding in your response. But, either can take months to get to.
In the meantime, review the adjudicative guidelines and the mitigating factors for foriegn contact (and/or whatever other paragraphs are referenced in your SOR. Gather documentation and have everything ready when your hearing is scheduled.
I decided for their decision thinking it would be a faster process.
I submitted my response mitigating their concerns (given that my father, mother , step mother, brother are of foreign nationals). I also submitted letters of character reference as supporting docs.
now iām waiting, I heard it normally takes 2-3 months to hear back and received a general email from DOHA rep saying just to wait until my hearing get scheduled.
But . . . In your response, did which type of hearing did you request? You have to be clear because the default is a live hearing in front of a judge and they take longer to schedule.
I had two options; either the hearing or decision by the DOHA judge after reviewing my documents. I chose the latter thinking it meant I wonāthave to wait to be scheduled for hearing, cutting off waiting time.
now iām told to wait for my hearing to be scheduledā¦that is what confused me.
I think i am going to call them because the repās email was very general and one sentence.
OK . . . Hereās whatās going on as near as I can tell from your posts:
You received an SOR and chose to have a āhearing on the written recordā. You wrote a response that you THOUGHT would be used to render a decision. Thatās not what happens.
Your response is only used for you to āadmitā or ādenyā each item in your SOR. There are rare occasions where DOHA takes a look at the response and rules in your favor. Rare.
What happens more commonly is that a government lawyer will write up a formal brief outlining the reasons that āit is not in the interest of national security to grant the applicant access to classified material.ā You will then get a copy of that brief and be given a timeline to respond. You need to go through and, point by point, refute each item. You need to prove where they are factually wrong (if they are) and you need to provide support for any mitigating factors listed in the adjudicative guidelines.
It is up to YOU to show that it āIS clearly in the interest of national security to grant you (the applicant) access to classified materialā. Then both briefs are provided to the ALJ. The government gets ONE try at their side and you get ONE try at yours. In your favor is the fact that you get to see exactly what their argument is before you have to write yours.
They do NOT send your first response to the judge for a decision.
You still have to wait for all of that to be scheduled.
I have been adjudicated!!!
I received a call yesterday from DOHA to give me the news that they have decided to clear me!
Here is my timeline for those interested:
February 2018 received EQip and started investigation process
September 2019: received SOR - foreign influence
November 2019: responded to SOR opting for decision based on my response ( I did not consult an attorney but thankful to have researched how to respond, including using this forum. I mitigated concerns within a personal essay; included letters of references from 4 different people and supporting documents)
End of Jan 2020: contacted DOHA re: status and Iām told my case has been submitted for a court hearing; which I did not request!
February 2020: I call, leave a voicemail and send an email to DoHA requesting an explanation as to why Iām being sent for a court hearing when I chose for a decision based on my SOR responseā¦ never heard back
March 26,2020: I got a call to say that Iām cleared
To God be the glory! I can finally look forward to a great career Iāve always desired.
Good luck to those still waiting and thank you for those who responded to my inquiries!
Iāve seen a few post the negative ruling was overturned. Gives confidence it isnt a rubber stamp kangaroo process. Marko posted an article where a negative ruling was overturned, but clearing agency appealed and had it reinstated. Thatā¦is interesting.
Sir thank you for providing that info. I believe Iām in the same boat. I need to change my response from HEARING to FORM. Will I be contacted by an adjudicator to do so? I submitted my SOR response and supporting documents about two weeks.
Background: my temp secret was revoked for defaulted student Loans that I have proof of payment for and a debt owed to an apt that I lost when I went in to default. This both happened when I lost my job in 2016 and I spell all of that out In detail in my response to the SOR and mitigators. Again I submitted proof of payment for everything they citied in my SOR.
Dchasejr: It takes one to three months after you submit your SOR response before a DOHA Department Counsel contacts you to schedule a hearing. You can ask him/her to change your request to a decision based on the written record when you are contacted. If your SOR response sufficiently mitigates the security concerns, sometimes DOHA will withdraw the SOR without submitting the case to an Administrative Judge.
And Iām reading your posts like a mini novels. Learned a lot from you @Amberbunny2. You definitely have a way with words. And when you are skipping a week or so, the blog definitely missing out.
