Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-16-01847/USCOURTS-ca13-16-01847-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Department of the Army
Respondent
Mark Geraghty Wonders
Petitioner

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential. 

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

MARK GERAGHTY WONDERS,

Petitioner

v.

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY,

Respondent

______________________ 

2016-1847

______________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in No. AT-0752-13-0055-B-1.

______________________ 

Decided: September 9, 2016

______________________ 

 MARK GERAGHTY WONDERS, Ozark, AL, pro se.

 CHRISTOPHER L. HARLOW, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of 

Justice, Washington, DC, for respondent. Also represented by CLAUDIA BURKE, ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR.,

BENJAMIN C. MIZER. 

______________________ 

Before MOORE, TARANTO, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

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2 WONDERS v. ARMY

PER CURIAM. 

Mark Geraghty Wonders worked for the Department 

of the Army, holding a position that required him to have 

a security clearance. The Army revoked his security

clearance in 2010 and thereafter fired him. After unsuccessfully challenging the clearance revocation within the 

Department of Defense, Mr. Wonders sought review by 

the Merit Systems Protection Board, alleging procedural 

violations in the Army’s initial revocation process. The 

Board, though it found procedural violations, concluded 

that the violations were harmless, and it therefore sustained the Army’s removal of Mr. Wonders from employment. We affirm. 

BACKGROUND

Mr. Wonders was employed by the Army as a Public

Affairs Specialist at Fort Rucker, Alabama. On October 7, 

2010, the Army’s Consolidated Adjudications Facility 

(CAF) sent him a letter, accompanied by a statement of 

reasons, stating its intent to revoke his security clearance. 

Eight months later, on June 9, 2011, the CAF revoked the 

clearance. 

Mr. Wonders requested a hearing before the Defense 

Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA). After reviewing 

the evidence, without deference to the CAF, the administrative judge of DOHA recommended that the Army 

reinstate Mr. Wonders’s clearance. The administrative 

judge also discussed two circumstances raising related 

“procedural issues.” J.A. 35. The first was that not until 

shortly before the DOHA hearing did the Army identify, 

and furnish to Mr. Wonders, the documents the CAF had 

relied on in revoking his clearance. The second involved 

one particular document, whether or not the CAF relied 

on it: the Army had not given Mr. Wonders, during the 

CAF’s proceedings, a revocation-favoring letter that his

commander had sent to the CAF. By the time of the 

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WONDERS v. ARMY 3 

DOHA hearing, Mr. Wonders had the evidence that was 

the subject of both procedural issues. 

The Personnel Security Appeals Board (PSAB) considered the DOHA judge’s recommendation, but it drew a 

different conclusion. On August 9, 2012, it denied Mr. 

Wonders’s appeal from the clearance revocation. The 

Army then fired him, because a security clearance was 

necessary for his position.

Mr. Wonders appealed his termination to the Merit 

Systems Protection Board. After the administrative judge 

affirmed the Army’s decision, Wonders v. Dep’t of the 

Army, No. AT-0752-13-0055-I-1, 2013 WL 6225536 (MSPB 

May 3, 2013), the Board found that the Army violated its 

own regulations during the CAF adjudication. Wonders v. 

Dep’t of the Army, No. AT-0752-13-0055-I-1, 2014 WL 

5319821 (MSPB June 25, 2014). The two violations found 

were a failure by the CAF to provide Mr. Wonders all the 

releasable documents the CAF relied on for the clearancerevocation decision and the CAF’s consideration of the 

commander’s letter without giving Mr. Wonders an opportunity to rebut what the letter said. The Board remanded 

the case for the Board’s administrative judge to conduct a 

harmless-error hearing, i.e., to determine whether the 

Army would have reached a different clearance-revocation 

decision had those violations not occurred.

On remand, the administrative judge conducted a 

hearing and determined that the procedural errors were 

harmless, because the errors had been identified, discussed, and analyzed by the DOHA judge and the PSAB, 

which made the ultimate revocation decision, was fully 

aware of the issues and their potential impact on Mr. 

Wonders’s case. Wonders v. Dep’t of the Army, No. AT0752-13-0055-B-1, 2015 WL 5122826 (MSPB Aug. 

26, 2015). On March 22, 2016, the Board affirmed the 

administrative judge’s decision. Wonders v. Dep’t of the 

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4 WONDERS v. ARMY

Army, No. AT-0752-13-0055-B-1, 2016 WL 1118749 

(MSPB Mar. 22, 2016). 

Mr. Wonders appeals. We have jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9). 

DISCUSSION

We must affirm the Board’s decision unless it is 

“(1) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law; (2) obtained without 

procedures required by law, rule, or regulation having 

been followed; or (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.” 5 U.S.C. § 7703(c); see Terban v. Dep’t of Energy, 

216 F.3d 1021, 1024 (Fed. Cir. 2000). The only challenge 

presented to us is the challenge to the clearance revocation; there is no separate challenge to removal if the 

revocation is proper. When reviewing an agency decision 

to revoke a security clearance, the Board and this court 

may not inquire into the substantive merits of the determination. See Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 529–

32 (1988); Cheney v. Dep’t of Justice, 479 F.3d, 1343, 

1349–50 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Inquiry is limited to “determin[ing] whether a security clearance was denied, whether the security clearance was a requirement of the 

appellant’s position, and whether the [applicable procedural guarantees] were followed.” Hesse v. Dep’t of State, 

217 F.3d 1372, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2000). Here, only the 

procedural guarantees are at issue.

Procedural protections include those prescribed in 5 

U.S.C. § 7513, see Hesse, 217 F.3d at 1376, and in agency 

regulations, Romero v. Dep’t of Defense, 527 F.3d 1324, 

1328 (Fed. Cir. 2008). The Board found violations of 

procedural regulations, and the Army, on appeal here, 

accepts the finding of such violations. The dispute on 

appeal is over the Board’s finding of harmless error as a 

basis for nevertheless sustaining the clearance revocation.

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WONDERS v. ARMY 5 

The clearance-revocation decision is subject to the 

harmless-error standard of 5 U.S.C. § 7701(c)(2)(A) when 

a removal based on a clearance revocation is challenged 

for procedural error in the revocation process. Romero, 

527 F.3d at 1328–30. Mr. Wonders had to show “harmful 

error in the application of the agency’s procedures in 

arriving at” the revocation decision. 5 U.S.C. 

§ 7701(c)(2)(A). Harmful error is an “[e]rror by the agency 

in the application of its procedures that is likely to have 

caused the agency to reach a conclusion different from the 

one it would have reached in the absence or cure of the 

error.” 5 C.F.R. § 1201.4(r). Mr. Wonders had the burden 

to show such error by a preponderance of the evidence. 

Id. § 1201.56(c)(1); see Romero, 527 F.3d at 1330 & n.2. 

Here, the Board had an ample basis for concluding

that Mr. Wonders failed to make that showing. The 

record supports the finding that Mr. Wonders received the 

missing evidence—the basis for the procedural violations 

found—before his DOHA hearing. The CAF provided Mr. 

Wonders the documents supporting its determination and 

the commander’s letter—and also certain allegedly exculpatory documents he cites in this court—before the DOHA 

hearing took place. Thus, the Board could reasonably 

conclude that he had the opportunity to address all of 

those documents in front of the DOHA judge and, then, in 

front of the PSAB. Both the DOHA and, crucially, the 

PSAB—the ultimate decision-maker about the clearance

revocation—considered the documents without giving any 

deference to the CAF. The Board’s finding that the procedural violations were not harmful is reasonable given that 

the ultimate decision-maker found revocation warranted, 

without deference to the CAF, once the procedural violations had been cured by furnishing the evidence to Mr. 

Wonders. 

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6 WONDERS v. ARMY

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of 

the Board. 

AFFIRMED

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