U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of the Inspector General 

Investigation of Allegations of 

Cheating on the FBI’s 

Domestic Investigations and 

Operations Guide (DIOG) Exam
 

Office of the Inspector General 

Oversight and Review Division 

September 2010 
I. INTRODUCTION 

A. Initiation of Investigation 

In December 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 

implemented a new Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG), 

which described the procedures its employees must follow when conducting 

domestic investigations. The DIOG replaced several older sets of guidelines 

that separately addressed criminal investigations, national security 

investigations, and foreign intelligence collection. 

According to testimony provided in 2008 by the FBI’s General Counsel to 

the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the DIOG is an outgrowth of the 

FBI’s post-September 11, 2001, transformation from primarily a law 

enforcement agency to a domestic intelligence agency that focuses on its 

national security and law enforcement missions. To help implement this 

transformation, in 2007 the FBI asked the Attorney General to combine several 

sets of guidelines that had previously governed the FBI into a single set that 

would reflect the FBI’s changed priorities. After lengthy review, discussions, 

and consultations, the Attorney General implemented the revised guidelines, 

entitled “Attorney General Consolidated Guidelines for FBI Domestic 

Operations” (Consolidated Guidelines), which took effect on December 1, 2008. 

According to an FBI press release, the Consolidated Guidelines “ensure 

that the FBI’s operating rules are consistent with the Bureau’s mission and 

current operational needs while at the same time protecting the privacy and 

civil liberties of Americans.” The DIOG, in turn, established detailed internal 

FBI rules and procedures that implemented the new Consolidated Guidelines. 

The new Guidelines created some public controversy. Some members of 

Congress and advocacy groups argued that the Guidelines expanded the FBI’s 

investigative power in ways that could potentially infringe on citizens’ privacy 

and civil rights, while the FBI argued that the Guidelines were a consolidation 

of existing authorities. 

In response to concerns about the proposed new Guidelines, the FBI 

assured Congress that the FBI would ensure that the FBI complied with the 

new Guidelines. For example, the FBI General Counsel testified that the “new 

guidelines take seriously the need to ensure compliance and provide for 

meaningful oversight to protect privacy rights and civil liberties.” She also 

testified that the guidelines would not take effect until the FBI had conducted 

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“comprehensive training to ensure that [FBI] personnel understand these new 

rules and will be ready to apply them in their operations.”1 

In accord with this testimony, the FBI implemented comprehensive 

training on the DIOG for approximately 20,000 FBI agents, analysts, and 

technicians. These employees were required to complete 16.5 hours of live 

classroom-style training. Moreover, after taking this training, the employees 

had to take and pass (with a score of 80 or above) a written, computerized 51-

question exam concerning the DIOG. 

Written instructions given both before and during the exam specified that 

employees could use the DIOG and notes to take the exam, but they were not 

allowed to consult with other employees. In addition, Question 51 of the exam 

required all employees to “certify that I only consulted the DIOG, notes, or 

training aids but no other person while taking this exam.” 

As discussed below, the training on the DIOG started in the spring of 

2009 and continued into the winter of 2010. FBI employees were encouraged 

to take the exam soon after completing the training, and the vast majority took 

it between May 2009 and January 2010. 

However, in September 2009, the FBI received an allegation that three 

top managers from the Washington Field Office (WFO) took the DIOG exam 

together and that WFO attorneys were present while the managers took the 

DIOG exam. 

Later, the FBI received four allegations about additional misconduct 

related to the DIOG exam. 

In addition, FBI officials expressed concerns to the Office of the Inspector 

General (OIG) that a large number of FBI employees had completed the exam 

extremely quickly – over 200 finished in 20 minutes or less – and that many of 

them received high passing scores. FBI officials who had developed the exam 

stated that it should take approximately 90 minutes or longer to complete the 

exam. In addition, the FBI reported to the OIG that it had received allegations 

that FBI employees, in addition to those in the WFO, had cheated on the exam 

by sharing answer sheets or by receiving assistance during the examination. 

Because of the concerns that there may have been widespread assistance 

given during the exam, contrary to the instructions for the exam and the 

1 FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni, “Statement before the Senate Select Committee 

on Intelligence” (September 23, 2008), http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress08/ 

caproni092308.htm (accessed August 4, 2010). 

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representations made in response to Question 51, in January 2010 the OIG 

opened this investigation related to the DIOG exam. 

B. Methodology 

The OIG began its investigation by examining internal FBI documents 

concerning the DIOG and the DIOG exam, including memoranda that 

described the development of the exam and e-mails that were sent to all FBI 

employees concerning the exam. We also examined FBI computer data 

showing which employees had taken the exam, how long it had taken them to 

pass, and what scores they had achieved. 

Based on our review of e-mails and the computerized exam data, we 

decided to conduct interviews in four FBI field offices around the country. We 

also investigated several of the individual complaints that had been previously 

filed with the FBI about alleged cheating on the exam. 

During our investigation we interviewed 76 employees in 9 field and 

regional area offices and FBI Headquarters about their conduct in taking the 

DIOG exam. 

C. Structure of the Report 

The report is divided into four sections. Section II provides background 

information regarding the new DIOG, the training given to employees about the 

DIOG, and the exam that followed. This section also describes the instructions 

that were given to employees who were taking the DIOG exam, the procedures 

for taking the exam, and the differences between the DIOG exam and the 

“typical” training exams that FBI employees take regularly. In addition, it 

describes the results of the FBI Inspection Division’s investigation of the 

allegations that senior FBI officials in the WFO had cheated on the exam. 

Section III presents the OIG’s findings in our investigations in the four 

field offices, as well as our investigations of the individual complaints. Section 

IV provides the OIG’s conclusions and recommendations. 

II. BACKGROUND 

A. The Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide 

In December 2008, the FBI issued the DIOG, whose primary purpose, 

according to an FBI training manual, is to standardize policy so that all 

investigations are conducted legally and consistently. As mentioned above, the 

DIOG was designed to replace numerous FBI manuals and other policy 

documents, which provided guidance to the FBI on conducting investigations 

in accordance with the law, Attorney General Guidelines, and FBI policies. 

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B. Training on the DIOG 

To train the FBI employees on the new DIOG, the FBI brought over 100 

employees, including Chief Division Counsels (CDC) and Associate Division 

Counsels, to Washington, D.C., in the winter and spring of 2009 for week-long 

“train-the-trainer” seminars that focused on core areas of the DIOG. According 

to the FBI, at these seminars the trainers were informed that when conducting 

training they could tell FBI employees about certain specific concepts that 

would be covered on the exam but that they should not reveal any actual exam 

questions. 

The trainers then returned to their various offices and (aided by 

additional trainers who had not attended the “train-the-trainer” seminars but 

who had attended a 16.5-hour training session and passed the DIOG exam) 

gave live training seminars in the spring and summer of 2009 on the 

requirements of the DIOG. The seminars were mandatory for every employee 

involved in “criminal or national security operations, operational support or 

intelligence collection activities,” according to the FBI’s Office of the General 

Counsel (OGC). Eventually, over 20,000 employees took the seminars – 

virtually every FBI Special Agent and Intelligence Analyst, as well as many FBI 

technicians, support employees, and employees of other law enforcement 

agencies assigned to various FBI task forces. 

Generally, the full training seminar was split into four approximately 4-

hour sessions, each concentrating on different core parts of the DIOG, for a 

total of 16.5 hours of training. While the training in the various field offices 

was designed to be standardized, the OIG found that it in fact varied and that 

individual trainers used different approaches. Some trainers, for example, 

relied mostly on a syllabus and Power Point slides that had been distributed 

during the Washington, D.C., “train-the-trainer” seminars, while others 

developed their own syllabus and slides and relied more heavily on those. 

The DIOG training was somewhat different from what was described to 

us as “normal” FBI training. In most training sessions, employees told us 

instructors “train to the test,” meaning that they very explicitly gear their 

comments towards the questions that will ultimately appear on any exam that 

follows the training. For example, in other training sessions, FBI employees 

told the OIG, some instructors stomped a foot several times, loudly, when they 

were covering a question that would be on the exam. Other instructors marked 

their Power Point slides with attention-getting signals – such as a cartoon 

character – if the information on that particular slide would be on the exam. 

FBI employees said they knew these to be clear signals to pay attention, take 

notes, and remember those points, which they understood would inevitably be 

covered on the exam. 

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FBI employees told us that some of the DIOG instructors employed 

similar techniques to clue the students about an important point that would be 

on the DIOG exam. However, the employees told the OIG that the DIOG 

training was not as focused on “training to the test” as the average FBI 

training. 

In addition, some employees noted that 16 hours of mandatory 

classroom training was an unusually long amount of training for a 

computerized training exam. 

C. The DIOG Exam 

The FBI’s Corporate Policy Office (CPO), which is part of the FBI 

Director’s Office, developed and distributed the DIOG exam. According to CPO 

officials, the purpose of the exam was to ensure that each employee understood 

and could follow the requirements of the DIOG. 

The CPO does not usually develop exams for FBI employees. In most 

cases, exams are developed by the FBI’s Training Division. To create the DIOG 

exam, the CPO asked nine FBI attorneys and Special Agents to compose 

questions that would cover the DIOG. A second group of 10 attorneys and 

Special Agents (some of whom were in the original group) revised those 

questions and settled on a final group of 50 questions for the exam. Some of 

the questions required a “true” or “false” answer, while the others required the 

test-taker to choose from multiple-choice answers. The exam also included 15 

“scenario-based” questions that required employees to evaluate hypothetical 

situations and identify permissible actions. 

According to a CPO official involved in the exam construction, and others 

we interviewed, the exam was designed to be more rigorous than many FBI 

training exams because the FBI wanted to ensure that everyone understood the 

important principles contained in the DIOG, as well as how to apply them. 

FBI employees told the OIG that they believed that some of the questions 

on the exam were poorly worded and difficult to understand. When the CPO 

later checked to see how often various questions were being answered 

incorrectly, it found that two or three questions stood out as more difficult than 

the others. 

1. Exam platform 

Initially, the completed exam was placed on a computer platform called 

“Survey Dancer,” where it was taken by several hundred employees. The CPO 

determined that Survey Dancer was not an acceptable platform and the exam 

was moved to the “Virtual Academy” platform, which the FBI has used for years 

for employee training courses and exams. 

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In many ways, however, the exam was not a typical Virtual Academy 

exam. In addition to being more rigorous than most Virtual Academy exams, it 

was procedurally different as well. For example, most Virtual Academy exams 

tell employees immediately after they have answered a question whether their 

answer is right or wrong. The DIOG exam did not. Only after they had 

answered all the DIOG questions were employees told whether they had passed 

or failed, and the computer program never told them which answers were 

wrong. Similarly, on most Virtual Academy exams, employees can change an 

answer after selecting a response. On the DIOG exam, employees could not 

change their initial answer to a question. 

In addition, unlike most Virtual Academy tests, the answers on the DIOG 

test were shuffled. Although the questions remained in the same order on 

every test, the order of the answers changed; for example, the answer to 

Question 5 that was labeled “a” on one test might be labeled “b” on another. 

As a result, the order of the multiple choice answers on a test given to one 

employee likely differed from that given to a different employee. In addition, for 

an employee who opened the exam more than once, the order of the answers 

likely changed from session to session. 

Several employees noted to the OIG that no other Virtual Academy exam 

required employees to certify that they worked on their own and that they 

believed that they were allowed to consult with each other on other Virtual 

Academy exams. However, as explained more fully below, FBI employees were 

explicitly forbidden to do so on the DIOG exam. 

Employees who restarted the exam – either because they had failed it 

previously, had signed off before completing it, or had been forced off by 

computer or power failure – had to retake the entire exam. Their previous 

answers were not saved. Some employees told us that they took the entire 

exam and then pressed the wrong button at the end, resulting in the exam 

disappearing from their screens and forcing them to retake the entire exam 

before they were given credit. 

Several employees told the OIG that as a result of these factors and the 

difficulty of the questions, the DIOG exam was significantly harder and took 

significantly longer to complete than the typical Virtual Academy exam. 

2. Consequences of failing the exam 

According to an e-mail sent to all employees before they took the exam, 

employees who did not achieve a passing score of 80 percent were required to 

take the exam again. Those who scored between 70 percent and 80 percent 

were allowed to retake the exam without any further training (unless they 

wanted it). Employees who scored below 70 percent were required to take 

remedial training before retaking the exam. 

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Many employees told the OIG that they did not remember reading this email and consequently did not know whether they had to take remedial 

training before attempting to pass a second time. Some employees learned it 

was possible to retake the exam without any remedial training after failing it 

and successfully signing back on. 

Other than the requirement to take the examination again (and possibly 

remedial training), there were no adverse personnel consequences to employees 

who failed the exam, even if they failed it several times. 

D. Instructions to Test-Takers 

1. Written instructions 

Once they had completed the 16.5 hours of DIOG training, FBI 

employees received e-mails instructing them that they could take the exam. 

The e-mails stated that the exam was “open book” and that employees could 

use the DIOG or “other information” to help them answer the questions. 

However, the e-mail warned employees that they could not “ask co-workers or 

anyone else for assistance while taking the exam.” 

In addition, when they signed on to the Virtual Academy to take the 

DIOG exam, the first page that appeared on the screen stated that employees 

could “consult the DIOG or your notes; however, you may not consult with 

another person to answer the questions on this exam.” 

The last question on the exam, Question 51, required employees to 

“certify” that they “only consulted the DIOG, notes, or training aids but no 

other person while taking this exam.” 

2. Verbal instructions 

Several trainers also told the OIG that during the DIOG training they 

emphasized the need for employees to take the exam alone, without consulting 

other employees. Most employees we interviewed said they remembered 

general warnings about not consulting with others but no specific discussions 

about permissible conduct within those constraints. 

Some of the trainers advised employees to expect that the exam would 

take about 2 hours to finish, and one CPO official said it was generally wellknown in the FBI that it would take approximately that long. 

3. Gaps in instructions 

Although the exam answers had to be recorded on a computer linked to 

the FBI’s Virtual Academy site, it was technologically possible for employees to 

open the exam and print out each question, page-by-page, which gave them a 

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complete, written copy of all 51 questions. There was no official, broadly 

publicized policy, either written or verbal, regarding whether this was 

permissible or impermissible. 

We found that some employees printed the exam without asking anyone 

for permission to print the exam, while others asked for permission. In at least 

one case, a legal advisor in a field office we visited told an employee in an email that he could print out the exam.2 In another case, a CPO employee told a 

trainer over the telephone that the trainer could print out the exam for others 

in his office to use. 

Despite this lack of official policy, a supervisory employee in the CPO 

said in September 2009 – after thousands of employees had already taken the 

exam – that: 

If ever asked, the CPO would not have authorized the printing of 

the DIOG test questions to be shared with employees prior to them 

taking the DIOG test. Even though the DIOG and notes were 

authorized during test taking, it was never the intent of the CPO to 

have copies of the test questions available outside of actually 

taking the Virtual Academy DIOG test.3 

In addition, we found that there were neither written guidelines nor verbal 

instructions as to how the trainers should conduct remedial training for 

employees who had failed the exam one or more times. Some trainers told the 

OIG that during their remedial training sessions they reviewed each question 

with employees who had failed and gave them the correct answers. Other 

trainers said that in the remedial training they reviewed the materials from the 

initial training sessions, concentrating on the questions that the employees had 

missed. Other trainers told us that they did not remember having any 

particular agenda for remedial training. 

Trainers (but not employees) were given access to a website that allowed 

them to see which employees had passed or failed the exam, as well as which 

questions they had missed. 

E. Exam Data 

The Virtual Academy program recorded certain data about the exam, 

including the date and time when each employee first opened the exam, the 

2 In this report, we use the pronoun “he” to refer to both male and female witnesses. 

3 The supervisory employee’s statement was contained in an affidavit taken by the 

FBI’s Inspection Division during its investigation of the complaint alleging cheating by three top 

supervisors and a legal advisor in the WFO, which is discussed below. 

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date and time when the employee successfully completed the exam, and the 

total amount of time that the exam was open for each employee. For each 

employee who opened the exam and completed it in the same session, the 

Virtual Academy shows how much time that employee had the exam open. In 

addition, for each employee who opened the exam more than once (either 

because the employee failed it one or more times or because the employee shut 

it down before completing it), the Virtual Academy shows the total amount of 

time the employee had the exam open for the multiple sessions. 

The Virtual Academy program also recorded the status of the exam at the 

end of each day. For example, if an employee failed the exam twice in one day 

and passed it on the third try on the same day, the computer would record only 

the single success at the end of the day, but not the interim failures earlier in 

the day. 

F. Indications that Employees Took the Exam Unduly Quickly 

In response to concerns about possible cheating on the exam, the FBI 

determined that over 200 employees had completed the exam in 20 minutes or 

less. Concerned that the test could not be completed that quickly without 

cheating, supervisors in the FBI Inspection Division tried to determine how 

long it should take to complete the examination. They instructed an Inspection 

Division Supervisory Special Agent to take the exam by reading the questions 

and potential answers as quickly as possible and selecting answers randomly. 

Even using this abbreviated procedure, the Supervisory Special Agent reported 

that he needed 20 minutes to finish the exam, leading the Inspection Division 

supervisors to suspect that employees who finished the exam in 20 minutes or 

less may have cheated during the exam. 

Similarly, in September 2009 a supervisory employee of the CPO stated 

that: 

[S]omeone who took the test in under 45 minutes would raise the 

suspicion of the CPO. The CPO advised all employees to block out 

two hours for the test. Through discussions with various people, it 

seems as though it was taking employees 1.5 to 2 hours to 

complete the test. I would say it would be nearly impossible to 

take the test in 12 minutes and make a perfect score. I was part of 

the team who developed and wrote the test questions and I also 

conducted approximately 50 DIOG training and remedial training 

sessions. It took me approximately 30 minutes to take the test, 

without looking in the book or reference notes, and I did not get 

100 percent. The DIOG test was built so that people could not 

speed through the test. It was developed so that people would find 

it necessary to think about the question, open the book, look at 

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their notes and apply the principles and concepts learned from 

training before answering the questions.4 

G. FBI Investigation of WFO Allegations 

In September 2009, the FBI Inspection Division received an anonymous 

complaint that three top managers from the WFO – an Assistant Director in 

Charge (ADIC) and two Special Agents in Charge (SAC) – cheated on the DIOG 

exam by taking it together, and that WFO attorneys were present while they 

took the test. 

The Inspection Division conducted an investigation and found that the 

SACs had taken the exam together, in the same room, while discussing the 

questions and possible answers with a legal advisor, who was also present. 

While the ADIC was also in the room at the time, he did not take the exam that 

day. Instead, the ADIC wrote down the answers and later used them to 

complete the exam another day. 

In his defense, one SAC argued, among other things, that he did not 

cheat because although he had asked the legal advisor to “reference the 

sections in the DIOG for us to use to answer the question,” he never asked the 

legal advisor “what the answer was to a particular question.” The FBI Office of 

Professional Responsibility (OPR) rejected that argument and found that the 

SAC’s conduct “violated basic test-taking protocols and constituted cheating.” 

OPR also found that both SACs violated FBI Offense Code 2.4, prohibiting false 

or misleading statements, by certifying on Question 51 that they had not 

“consulted” with anyone during the test. OPR issued a decision suspending 

the two SACs for 20 days without pay and demoting them from a Senior 

Executive Service position to a non-supervisory GS-13 pay grade. The SACs 

appealed OPR’s final action to the Disciplinary Review Board. Pursuant to the 

FBI’s procedures, the demotions and service of the suspensions have been 

stayed pending a final decision on appeal. 

In his defense, the legal advisor asserted that he was not aware that his 

conduct “facilitated cheating.” The OPR concluded that the legal advisor had 

exhibited an “astounding lack of judgment” by “assisting Executive 

Management with the DIOG exam” – and violated FBI Offense Code 5.22, which 

prohibits, among other things, “conduct . . . which . . . seriously calls into 

question the judgment . . . of the employee.” Referring to Question 51, which 

expressly prohibited “consulting” with others, OPR wrote that “under no 

circumstances can your assistance, let alone the fact that the three men openly 

4 The supervisory employee’s statement was also contained in an affidavit taken by the 

FBI Inspection Division during its investigation of the complaint alleging cheating by a legal 

advisor and three top supervisors in the WFO, discussed more fully in the following section. 

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discussed questions, be considered anything less than consultation.” OPR 

issued a decision suspending the legal advisor for 10 days without pay. This 

decision is also under appeal. 

The ADIC argued that he had not cheated because the answers he wrote 

down for his later use constituted “notes,” which he argued were permissible 

under the open-book procedures of the exam. OPR rejected this claim, finding 

among other things that the ADIC committed misconduct when he certified on 

Question 51 that he had “consulted” with no other person while taking the 

exam. OPR’s proposal letter to the ADIC stated: 

This certification is straight-forward and it is not open to dispute 

that the [legal advisor’s] assistance, and your discussion with the 

SACs, constitute consultation. While the others may not have 

been in the room when you actually took the exam, you copied 

answers while the two SACs took the exam and used those 

answers to complete the test. 

The ADIC retired from the FBI after learning that the FBI proposed to discipline 

him, but before the FBI had reached a final decision about that discipline. 

After the conclusion of the Inspection Division’s investigation of the 

allegations about the WFO managers’ conduct on the DIOG exam, the FBI 

reported to us that it subsequently received allegations that employees in 

addition to those in the WFO may have cheated on the exam by sharing answer 

keys or by receiving assistance. In addition, the FBI informed us that a high 

number of FBI employees had completed the exam extremely quickly and 

received high passing scores, which appeared to be inconsistent with the 

design of the exam if it was taken online without an answer key. In light of 

these concerns, we opened this investigation in January 2010. 

III. OIG INVESTIGATION 

In this section, we first describe the results of our interviews in four field 

offices. We then discuss our findings regarding three individual allegations of 

cheating on the DIOG exam that we received from the FBI. 

A. Field Office Interviews 

The OIG chose the four field offices based on two criteria: the number of 

employees who finished the exam quickly or e-mail communications suggesting 

that one or more employees in the office may have cheated on the DIOG exam.5 

5 We selected those criteria expecting that they would be indicative of employees 

cheating on the exam. However, our investigation found that these criteria were not 

(Cont’d.) 

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1. Field Office 1 

We interviewed 11 employees in Field Office 1 and found evidence at this 

office of a significant number of FBI employees who cheated on the exam. 

Seven of the 11 employees we interviewed – a legal advisor, who we call 

Attorney James; an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC); a Supervisory 

Special Agent (SSA); and four special agents — acknowledged to us that they 

had used an answer sheet while taking the exam. Several of the seven said 

they also gave answer sheets to other employees in the field office. In addition, 

Attorney James acknowledged consulting with another agent while taking the 

exam. 

We also concluded that another one of the field office’s legal advisors, 

who we call Attorney Clark, attempted to impede the OIG investigation into this 

matter and lacked candor when questioned about those actions. 

a. Use of answer sheets 

The employees we interviewed at this field office told us that answer 

sheets for the exam were freely available within the field office. One agent, for 

example, said he received two different answer sheets, one of which contained 

more correct answers than the other. He also told us that answer sheets 

seemed to be “floating around” his entire (14-person) squad. Another agent 

said that he gave his answer sheet to 15 other FBI employees in that field 

office. The seven employees who told us that they used answer sheets worked 

in three different squads within the office, as well as in the legal advisor’s office 

and executive management of the field office. 

The field office employees described different types of answer sheets that 

were circulated. One agent told us that he saw two handwritten versions that 

contained both the questions and answers to the DIOG exam. He said that 

most of the questions and answers were in the correct order, but some were 

out of order and a couple of questions had the wrong answer. 

Another agent told us that he received a handwritten answer sheet from 

an agent and then he converted it to a typed answer sheet, which he gave to 

others. He provided us a copy of that typed answer sheet. It did not contain 

the exam questions, but instead consisted of a list numbered 1 through 50. 

necessarily related to cheating on the exam. Rather, we found that some persons who cheated 

took a long time to complete the exam, while others who did not cheat finished very quickly. 

As a result, quick exam times were not directly related to cheating. Similarly, the e-mails we 

found did not, for the most part, come from persons who we determined had in fact cheated. 

Therefore, while our investigation was intended to target field offices where there were 

indications of cheating, the criteria that we picked ended up being less useful in predicting 

cheating than we had expected. 

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Next to each number is a short phrase (such as “true” or “type 5”) giving the 

answer to each of the 50 exam questions. 

Attorney James admitted creating two answer sheets that consisted of 

the question number and the answer (for example, 1 – a, 2 – true, 3 – c, etc.) 

Attorney James told us that he gave the first answer sheet to an SSA who was 

also a trainer and the second answer sheet to an ASAC. Attorney James also 

said that he distributed the answer sheets because he felt that the DIOG exam 

was just another administrative hurdle that FBI employees had to surmount. 

Attorney James stated that if he had realized that the FBI considered the exam 

to be so important, he never would have given out the answers.6 

According to the ASAC who received the answer sheet, after failing the 

exam once, he had approached Attorney James (who was one of the office’s 

trainers) to ask for assistance. The ASAC said that although he did not solicit 

it, Attorney James gave him an answer sheet and told him that he was not sure 

how reliable it was. The ASAC said he used the answer sheet when he 

subsequently retook the exam. 

The SSA who also received an answer sheet from Attorney James told us 

he was so busy at work that he missed two deadlines for taking the exam. 

During a conversation with Attorney James about an unrelated matter, the 

SSA mentioned that he had missed the deadlines for taking the exam. The SSA 

said that soon afterward Attorney James gave him a piece of paper containing 

handwritten answers to some of the questions. He told us that when he 

subsequently took the DIOG exam, he reviewed some of those answers. 

In addition to the ASAC, the SSA, and Attorney James, four other Field 

Office 1 agents we interviewed also acknowledged using answer sheets when 

taking the exam. 

When we asked them why they had used the answer sheets when taking 

the exam, FBI employees gave varying answers. The ASAC told us that once he 

had accepted the answer sheet from Attorney James, he was “past the point of 

return.” The SSA said that although he looked at the answer sheet while he 

took the exam, it was not very useful to him and he did not really “rely” on it. 

He said that in retrospect, he should have handed back the answer sheet “to 

remove any gray areas.” 

Several other field office employees claimed that they viewed the answer 

sheets as “notes” allowed under the DIOG exam instructions, which stated that 

6 Attorney James also told us that he used an answer sheet that he had written while 

sitting in Attorney Clark’s office while Attorney Clark was taking the DIOG exam, as described 

more fully below. 

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“you may consult the DIOG or your notes” while taking the exam. Others, 

including two agents, said that they were pressed at the time by the demands 

of their case work and were seeking to satisfy the DIOG requirement quickly. 

Another agent responded that he was being pushed to pass the test or take 

remedial training. Another agent questioned why it was necessary for him to 

pass an exam when even if he scored 100 percent he would still need to 

consult the DIOG on a regular basis. 

We interviewed five of the six Field Office 1 trainers, including Attorney 

James, and asked them whether they were aware of or had condoned the use 

of answer sheets in the field office. Three trainers said they had neither used 

nor distributed answer sheets. They told us that they did not know that 

answer sheets had been circulating in the office and that, had they known, 

they would have considered it to be improper and would have instructed 

employees to stop. Attorney James told us that he had heard rumors in 2009 

about other answer sheets “floating around the office,” but that he did not 

consider it to be his responsibility to investigate those rumors. Another 

trainer, the SSA who had received an answer sheet from Attorney James, said 

he did not know other answer sheets were available in the office. 

As described earlier, one of the agents who used an answer sheet told us 

that he had provided an answer sheet to 15 additional employees, and another 

agent said he thought that everyone in his 14-person squad had received a 

copy of an answer sheet. We did not interview all of these additional employees 

or further investigate whether or how many others in this field office had used 

answer sheets. 

In addition to the use of answer sheets by Field Office 1 employees, our 

investigation determined that at least one of the employees we interviewed 

directly consulted with others while taking the exam but answered Question 51 

by certifying that he had not done so. We discuss this in the next section. 

b. Attempt to obstruct the investigation 

In May 2009, Attorney James, who had been selected to be one of the 

DIOG trainers for the office, tried to pass the DIOG exam and failed. Soon 

afterward, he talked to Attorney Clark and told him that he had failed the 

exam. According to Attorney James, Attorney Clark said something to the 

effect of “let’s just get this thing done,” walked into Attorney Clark’s office and 

signed onto the exam on his own computer. Attorney Clark then took the exam 

on his computer, while Attorney James sat nearby in the office. According to 

Attorney James, they discussed the questions and answers as Attorney Clark 

was taking the test and, once the correct answer had been selected, Attorney 

James made a note of it on a sheet of paper. Attorney James said that he then 

returned to his own office and retook the exam. Attorney James also told us 

that toward the end of his second attempt to pass the exam, he called a friend 

14 
in another office to ask him about the answer to a particular question. 

Attorney James passed the exam on the second attempt. 

Despite consulting with a friend during the exam, Attorney James 

certified in response to Question 51 that he had not “consulted” with other 

persons while taking the exam. When asked why he had done this, Attorney 

James told us that he “just didn’t think about it.” 

In April 2010, the OIG began interviewing employees in Field Office 1 

about the DIOG exam. According to Attorney James, shortly after learning 

about the OIG’s telephone calls to the field office, Attorney James and Attorney 

Clark started discussing what issues might be covered during any upcoming 

OIG interviews. 

Attorney James said that he did not remember their exact discussions, 

but that among other things Attorney James told Attorney Clark that he 

(Attorney James) was going to be completely candid with the OIG and would 

tell the OIG that he had been sitting in Attorney Clark’s office while Attorney 

Clark was taking his exam. Attorney James said that during these discussions 

he grew frustrated with Attorney Clark because Attorney Clark refused to admit 

that that had taken place. Attorney James said he eventually told Attorney 

Clark that he (Attorney James) had been in Attorney Clark’s office legitimately 

because it was a “remedial situation” at the time – and that therefore Attorney 

Clark had been permitted to have Attorney James in the room at the same 

time. According to Attorney James, he did not really believe that it had 

qualified as remedial training, but suggested that only because he wanted to 

couch it in a way that would allow Attorney Clark to acknowledge that they had 

taken the exam together. 

Attorney James said that during one of these discussions, Attorney Clark 

told Attorney James, “don’t throw me under the bus.” Attorney James told the 

OIG that he considered this comment to be a request for him to be less than 

candid with the OIG, particularly about the time that he had sat in Attorney 

Clark’s office while Attorney Clark took the exam. 

When we interviewed Attorney Clark, he said that he had allowed 

Attorney James to sit in his office while he took the exam because he was 

giving Attorney James remedial training. Attorney Clark agreed that he had 

told Attorney James, “don’t throw me under the bus,” but claimed that the 

comment was not an attempt to stifle Attorney James’s candor. 

Attorney Clark initially told the OIG that he made the comment nearly a 

year earlier, in 2009, shortly after Attorney James told him that he (Attorney 

James) had failed the exam, and not in 2010 when the two of them were 

discussing Attorney James’s upcoming interview with the OIG. Attorney Clark 

said he was concerned that Attorney James’s credibility as a trainer might 

15 
suffer if Attorney James told others that he (Attorney James) had failed the 

exam, so Attorney Clark said, “don’t throw me under the bus,” meaning that 

Attorney Clark wanted Attorney James to hide the fact that he (Attorney 

James) had failed the exam. Later in the interview, however, when asked if 

Attorney Clark might have made the comment in 2010, Attorney Clark told us 

that he could not remember exactly when he had made that comment. 

We did not find credible Attorney Clark’s statement that he said, “don’t 

throw me under the bus” to encourage Attorney James to hide the fact that 

Attorney James had failed the exam. First, the comment “don’t throw me 

[Attorney Clark] under the bus” does not seem logically related to the concern 

that Attorney James’s credibility as a trainer would suffer if others knew that 

Attorney James had failed the exam. Second, Attorney James was certain that 

Attorney Clark made the comment in 2010, as they were discussing Attorney 

James’s upcoming OIG interview. Assuming it was made in 2010, the DIOG 

training was long over and Attorney James’s credibility as a trainer no longer 

was an issue. 

We credit Attorney James’s statement that Attorney Clark was 

encouraging Attorney James not to reveal that Attorney James had been 

present in Attorney Clark’s office while Attorney Clark took the exam. We 

conclude that Attorney Clark attempted to impede an OIG investigation and 

lacked candor when we asked him about his attempt to do so. 

c. OIG Analysis 

We found cheating in this field office on the DIOG exam by a significant 

number of FBI employees. Of the 11 employees we interviewed, 3 supervisors 

and 4 agents told us that they used answer sheets for the exam. These agents 

worked in various squads in the office, and they indicated that answer sheets 

were “floating around” their squads. 

We found unconvincing the employees’ arguments that it was 

permissible to use answer sheets because they were “notes” that were explicitly 

allowed under the open-book procedures established for the DIOG exam. We 

do not believe that any FBI employee could reasonably believe that using 

someone else’s answers to the exam constituted using “notes” or could be 

viewed as complying with the test instructions, and verbal guidance, requiring 

them to take the test without assistance from others. 

Their argument is similar to that offered by the former ADIC of the WFO, 

who argued to FBI OPR that the list of questions and answers he created while 

watching others take and discuss the exam were permissible “notes,” which he 

later used in taking the exam himself. In rejecting that argument, FBI OPR 

reasonably concluded that by copying and using other people’s answers to the 

exam, the ADIC effectively “consulted” with others even though he received the 

16 
answers before he took the exam himself. The same reasoning applies to using 

answer sheets created by others to take the exam. 

Similarly, we concluded that those who distributed answer sheets for use 

by others acted improperly. By providing answers to others for their use in 

taking the exam, these employees facilitated potential cheating and violated 

basic test-taking protocols. In the WFO matter, FBI OPR concluded that the 

legal advisor who discussed the exam questions with the ADIC and other 

managers while the other managers took the exam had committed misconduct. 

We see no distinguishing difference between providing an answer sheet to an 

employee before that employee takes the test, as happened in Field Office 1, 

and providing answers to employees while some of them are taking the test, as 

happened in the WFO case. 

The argument that the use of answer sheets was somehow excusable 

because the employees were too busy trying to complete their other duties is 

also unpersuasive. The exam did take longer than the typical Virtual Academy 

exam, but the FBI made it clear from the start that the DIOG exam was 

important, that it would be different from other exams, and that employees 

should take it seriously and do their own work to pass the test. The employees 

who used answer sheets ignored those warnings. 

In addition, we were troubled that Attorney James consulted with a 

friend to help answer a question, and then falsely certified on the exam that he 

had not consulted with any other person in taking the exam. Attorney James 

also provided answer sheets for the exam to two other supervisors, who 

acknowledged that they used the answer sheets in taking the exam. 

Finally, we believe that the cheating on the exam was not confined to the 

limited number of employees we interviewed in this office. Despite the 

instructions about taking the exam on your own and the certification that the 

test-taker had consulted no other person when taking the test, other employees 

in this office had access to answer sheets when taking the exam. While we 

cannot say with certainty whether or how many of those employees actually 

used the answer sheets, based on the evidence in our investigation we believe it 

likely that at least some of them did. 

2. Field Office 2 

We also interviewed FBI employees in Field Office 2 about the DIOG test. 

First, and most troubling, we found four agents who took advantage of a flaw in 

the Virtual Academy computer program to reveal the answers to the questions 

as they were taking the exam. Our investigation also found widespread 

distribution by employees in this field office of “study guides” that contained 

the 50 questions on the DIOG and the portion of the DIOG that contained the 

answer to each question. In addition, we found that one agent created an 

17 
 

 

answer sheet that he sent to an employee in another field office, and another 

employee from this field office consulted with others while answering the 

questions on a printed copy of the exam. 

a.	 Use of Virtual Academy computer program to view 

the answers to the DIOG exam 

An FBI agent who works on a cyber crime squad in Washington, D.C., 

told the OIG that sometime in 2008 he was experimenting with Virtual 

Academy computer programming to see how secure it was when he noticed 

some “really sloppy” coding that amounted to a programming flaw. According 

to the agent, the flaw allowed any FBI employee taking some Virtual Academy 

exams to open an XML file located in the employee’s computer’s “Temporary 

Internet Files” folder and view all the answers to the exam.7 

The agent told us that he created a computer tool that made it easier to 

see the DIOG exam answers by taking employees directly to the XML file that 

contained the answers. While the answers were available without the tool to 

anybody who realized where to look for them on their computer, he said the 

tool made it slightly easier to get to the answers. He told us that he created 

this tool mostly as a training device for other cyber squad employees. He said 

that he did not use the computer tool or the XML file to take the DIOG exam, 

and that he took the exam on his own without assistance from anyone else. 

However, the agent told us that during a computer class in March 2009 

he described both the programming flaw and the computer tool that he had 

created to another cyber agent who worked in Field Office 2. The agent told us 

that a week later he sent the computer tool to the other cyber agent in Field 

Office 2 as an attachment to an e-mail. The agent said that he sent the 

computer tool only after receiving verbal assurances from the Field Office 2 

agent that he would not forward the computer tool to anyone else. 

We reviewed the e-mails between these two agents. In one e-mail, the 

Washington, D.C., cyber agent mentioned the recent computer class that the 

two agents had attended together and explained the use of the computer tool, 

noting that it could be used to view the answers on most Virtual Academy 

exams. The agent added, at the bottom of the e-mail, the following: 

7 A Virtual Academy programmer told the OIG that he and others who worked with him 

were aware that the answers were available in the XML file. He said that because the Virtual 

Academy is designed for training, and not testing, the availability of answers in the XML file 

had never before been a problem. In addition, he said a person would have to be particularly 

knowledgeable about computers to locate the file, much less use it. The Chief of the CPO told 

us that nobody at Virtual Academy had alerted him to the XML issue and that he had not 

known about it until the OIG interviewed him during this investigation. 

18 
“DISCLAIMER: This is only a learning tool, not to be used for official testtaking purposes.” 

The Field Office 2 agent who received the e-mail told us that he also took 

the exam on his own without using the computer tool or the XML file to look at 

the answers. He said, however, that after answering the questions on his own, 

he looked at the XML file to double-check his answers. He said that he did not 

believe he violated any FBI rules because he did not change any of his answers 

after reviewing the correct ones in the XML file. 

However, this field office agent forwarded the e-mail and the attached 

computer tool he had received to four other agents on his cyber squad in the 

field office. At the bottom of this forwarded e-mail, the field office agent added 

this comment: “Depending on how lazy you are, [this program] will make 

taking the tests faster.” 

We interviewed the four agents on the cyber squad who received this email. Three of the four agents told us that they used the computer tool or the 

XML file while taking the DIOG exam. 

One of the agents told us that he used the computer tool attached to the 

e-mail to check some of the answers on the exam. He said that he did not use 

the tool to check every answer, but that when he had trouble answering a few 

of the questions, he used the program to find those answers. He told us that 

he felt he could answer “yes” to Question 51 because, even though he had 

assistance, he did not receive assistance from another person. 

Another one of these agents told the OIG that he did not use the 

computer tool, but did look at the answers in the XML file. According to this 

agent, he failed the exam the first time he took it. He said that an Associate 

Division Counsel subsequently gave him remedial training by reviewing the 

questions he had missed and providing the correct answers for each. He also 

told us that by the time he retook the exam he had learned that the answers 

were all available on the XML file. He said that he used the answers in the 

XML file to help him complete the exam. He scored a 100% when he retook the 

exam. According to this agent, it was “common knowledge” within his office 

that you could see the answers to the DIOG exam by opening the XML file. He 

told us that knew that he was cheating at the time, but he still answered “yes” 

to Question 51 because he did not receive assistance from another FBI 

employee during the exam. 

The third agent said that he also looked at the answers on the XML file. 

According to this agent, he answered all the exam questions without help from 

the XML file, but then changed a few of his answers after checking them 

against those in the XML file. He said that he did not believe he cheated 

because he worked on his own to answer the questions. He also told us that 

19 
 

 

others on his cyber squad knew that the answers were available in the XML 

file. 

b. Study guides 

Several employees in Field Office 2 told us that different study guides on 

the DIOG exam were available in various parts of the office. While the study 

guides were prepared by various employees and took slightly different forms, 

most conformed to a basic pattern. In the study guides, the 50 DIOG exam 

questions were printed out and assembled in a notebook. Behind each 

question was a photocopied page containing the portion of the DIOG that was 

responsive to that particular question. To make matters easier, some of the 

study guides included highlighting that emphasized the particular portion of 

the DIOG page that contained the answer. Based on these descriptions, we 

concluded that while the study guides were not explicit answer sheets, they 

served a similar purpose.8 

Of the 15 employees we interviewed in Field Office 2, 4 said they had 

used a study guide in answering the DIOG questions: 

	 One agent told us he used a study guide that had been left on a 

table in a resident agency for the use of anyone who wanted it. 

That agent told the OIG that he copied the study guide and 

returned it to the table, and then used his copy to study for and 

take the exam. 

	 An ASAC told us that an agent gave him a study guide, which he 

used to prepare for the exam. The ASAC said that when actually 

taking the exam he did not generally consult the study guide, but 

may have looked at it once or twice. 

	 An agent said that he had given the ASAC a study guide. 

According to the agent, he received the study guide from a friend in 

the FBI and then modified it by adding tabs and highlighting that 

made it more useful. He said he used the study guide while taking 

the exam. 

	 An agent told us that, in addition to using the XML files to see the 

answers, he also used a tabbed, marked DIOG manual that 

directed users to the correct answers for each question. He said he 

corrected some of the mistakes in the manual and passed it on to 

others in the office. 

8 We were unable to obtain a copy of any of these study guides. Several Field Office 2 

employees told us that in connection with a move of the field office that occurred after they 

took the exam, they shredded unnecessary documents, including the study guides. 

20 
 

 

The Field Office 2 employees who used the study guides said that they 

did not consider their actions to be improper. They said that they believed the 

study guides qualified as “notes,” which they were permitted to use while 

taking the exam. 

Field Office 2’s chief trainer, its Chief Division Counsel, told us that he 

did not know that employees were using study guides. He said that he did not 

like the idea of using study guides and would not have encouraged their use. 

He also said, however, that he would not “hang someone” for using study 

guides because employees who used them were “going to be forced to go look at 

the DIOG to get the answer, so it achieved the purpose the test was designed 

for.” 

c. Answer sheets 

We also found that answer sheets were distributed in Field Office 2. 

One agent, who we call Agent Smith, told us that he received a printed 

copy of the exam with all the answers already filled in that had been created by 

a support employee at the request of another agent in the field office, who we 

call Agent Jones. Agent Smith said he did not rely on the answer sheet 

because he was not sure if it was correct. He said that he instead studied by 

himself and provided his own answers on the exam.9 

The support employee told us that he printed out the exam and, working 

on his own, wrote down the correct answers to each question. After he had 

finished his work, he left the printed questions and handwritten answers on 

his desk. He said that Agent Jones asked him where his answers were and he 

told him. He said he did not remember telling Agent Smith about the answers 

and was not sure if Agent Jones had used his answers. 

Agent Jones said that he studied for and completed the exam using a 

paper copy of the exam, but that he did not receive his paper copy from the 

support employee. He denied that he had asked for or even knew about the 

support employee’s paper copy of the exam with the answers. 

Another field office agent (who, as discussed above, also used a study 

guide) told the OIG that he also created an answer sheet and sent it to a 

relative who worked in a different FBI field office. The OIG reviewed a copy of 

that answer sheet, which contained 50 complete sentences, each of which 

contained the correspondingly numbered exam question with the answer 

9 Agent Smith also told us that his supervisor said that there was a printed copy of the 

DIOG in which employees had been “highlighting what they thought was important” and his 

supervisor said that “everyone’s been using [it] to take their test.” 

21 
incorporated into the question. That same field office agent also told us that he 

had heard rumors, probably from the relative who received his answer sheet, 

that employees in the relative’s office had been collaborating on the exam. 

The CDC in Field Office 2 said that he did not know that anyone in his 

office had printed out either answer sheets or copies of the exam with the 

answers marked in. The CDC said that had he known that, he would have 

considered it improper and would have advised the employees to shred the 

answers immediately. 

d. Consulting with others 

Agent Jones said that while he was answering the exam questions on his 

paper copy, he consulted with other agents in the field office when he had 

problems answering three or four of the questions. However, on Question 51, 

he certified that he did not consult with anyone else. He told the OIG that he 

thought his answer to that question was accurate, even though he consulted 

with other agents, because, “I thought the whole idea of the DIOG was to 

generate an understanding between the agents.” 

e. OIG Analysis 

We believe that Field Office 2 agents cheated on the exam when they 

looked at the answers to the exam by using a computer tool or XML files. We 

believe that under no circumstance could this conduct be considered 

consistent with the test-taking instructions, and the agents did not attempt to 

justify it as such. 

In addition, we found that various field office employees, including the 

ASAC, used study guides created in whole or in part by others that contained 

highlighted portions of the DIOG attached to each of the 50 exam questions, in 

effect giving users the answer to each question on the exam. We believe that 

these “study guides,” which in fact were the 50 exam questions with the 

answers located behind each question, served a similar purpose as answer 

sheets. 

In addition, we found that one agent discussed the correct answers with 

others while working on a paper copy of the exam in preparation for entering 

answers on the electronic exam. The instructions accompanying the electronic 

exam stated that employees “may not consult another person to answer the 

questions on this exam.” We do not believe an employee could reasonably 

think it would be impermissible to consult with others while taking the exam 

on a computer, but permissible to consult with others while answering 

questions on a paper copy of the exam. This agent also certified on Question 

51 that he had not consulted with other employees, when this was not true. 

22 
 

3. Field Office 3 

We interviewed 10 FBI employees in Field Office 3. We learned that 

virtually every employee in that field office was provided with a printed paper 

copy of the exam, which enabled them to work on the answers on the paper 

copy before signing into the electronic version and completing the exam. 

As noted earlier, the FBI had no official publicized policy, either written 

or verbal, regarding whether FBI employees were permitted to print out the 

exam questions prior to taking the exam. In a September 2009 affidavit, a 

supervisory employee in the CPO said that if his office had been asked, it: 

would not have authorized the printing of the DIOG test questions 

to be shared with employees prior to them taking the DIOG test 

[and that] . . . it was never the intent of the CPO to have copies of 

the test questions available outside of actually taking the Virtual 

Academy DIOG test.10 

However, his intent and this instruction were not formally communicated to 

others throughout the FBI who were taking the test. Moreover, in Field Office 3 

the paper copies were distributed by Field Office 3’s training coordinator, an 

agent. He told us that he had received permission from a CPO employee to 

print out the exam and distribute it widely. The CPO employee confirmed to us 

that he gave the agent permission to print out the exam, although he said he 

believed at the time that the printed copies would be distributed to only a few 

employees who were having trouble accessing the computer version and not to 

the entire office. Similarly, an Associate Division Counsel in another field office 

sent an e-mail allowing one employee to print out the exam. 

All the Field Office 3 employees we interviewed said they had used the 

printed exam to work on their own and had not consulted with others about 

the answers – either while working with the printed exam or while taking the 

electronic version. Under those circumstances, we do not believe that using 

printed copies of the exam questions to take the test or to prepare for taking 

the test online was improper. We also found no evidence that Field Office 3 

employees had used answer sheets, study guides, or computer programs to 

reveal the answers to the questions on the exam like the employees in Field 

Office 2. 

10 As noted above, the supervisory employee made this statement in an affidavit that he 

wrote when asked about the allegations of cheating on the exam by a legal advisor and 

managers in the WFO. 

23 
 

 

4. Field Office 4 

We interviewed seven FBI employees in Field Office 4. Of those seven, 

four told us they had obtained printed versions of the exam that showed only 

the questions. They all said they worked on the answers on their own, as 

instructed by trainers during the pre-exam training sessions. 

However, we determined that one Field Office 4 agent we interviewed 

completed the exam and left a copy of both the questions and the answers on 

his desk. The agent then sent an e-mail to a secretary telling him that he was 

going to be out of the office, but that he had scored 100 on the test. His e-mail 

instructed the secretary to tell the squad supervisor and “anyone else who is 

interested in ‘studying’ my notes that I will leave them on my chair.” In fact, 

these “notes” were his copy of the exam questions and answers. 

The agent told us that he believed no one used his “notes” because his 

set of questions and answers did not appear to have been moved when he 

returned to the office and no one thanked him for providing them. The agent 

acknowledged to the OIG that his e-mail was improper and that any employee 

who had used his answers would have been acting improperly. 

None of the seven FBI employees we interviewed said they used these 

notes when taking the test. However, we did not interview others in Field 

Office 4 to determine if anyone had in fact used the agent’s “notes” or any other 

answer sheets. 

B. Other Complaints of Cheating 

1. Resident Agency 

In December 2009, the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of a field office 

received information that the Senior Supervisory Resident Agent (SSRA) in one 

of the field office’s resident agencies had allegedly cheated on the DIOG exam 

by soliciting help from a Special Agent he supervised.11 The SSRA admitted to 

the SAC that he had received help from the Special Agent, who we call Special 

Agent Johnson. In addition, the SSRA subsequently wrote a letter to the SAC 

stating that he had also received an answer key to the exam from an SSA 

within the resident agency. 

The OIG interviewed nine employees in the resident agency and field 

office and reviewed documents provided by several of them. We determined 

that the SSRA had asked his subordinate agent, Agent Johnson, for help on 

11 The SSRA has since been terminated by the FBI as a result of the investigation that 

it conducted into allegations of misconduct unrelated to those concerning the DIOG exam. 

24 
the exam and had also accepted an answer key from an SSA. In addition, the 

SSRA had accepted help on the exam from a third employee, a support services 

technician who was also subordinate to the SSRA. 

The SSRA told the OIG that he had failed the exam several times and had 

become frustrated and worried about what might happen if he could not pass 

it. He said he asked two employees that he supervised – both Agent Johnson 

and the support services technician – to help him with the exam. Both 

employees sat with the SSRA in his office while he re-took the exam – at two 

different times – and both discussed the questions and possible answers with 

him. Agent Johnson told the OIG that he tried to leave the SSRA’s office 

several times because Agent Johnson was uncomfortable helping, but that the 

SSRA asked him to come back in each time. 

The SSA told the OIG that he had failed the exam twice and was 

frustrated that the test did not provide feedback on which questions he 

answered incorrectly. The SSA was also embarrassed that he and the SSRA 

were the only agents in the office having trouble passing the exam. Therefore, 

the SSA said he took the exam a third time and decided to write down most of 

the questions and his answers as he went along. That way, he said, if he failed 

a third time he would be able to independently research the questions to 

determine where he had been wrong. After he passed the test and did not need 

the list of questions and answers, he offered them to the SSRA, who accepted 

them. However, the SSRA said he did not use the answer sheet when he 

eventually passed the exam, although he did rely on help from Agent Johnson 

and the support services technician. 

We concluded that the SSRA knew that he was not supposed to receive 

assistance on the exam but nevertheless asked for and received unauthorized 

help twice. In addition, the SSRA knowingly provided false information on the 

DIOG exam by certifying in answering Question 51 that he had not consulted 

with anyone in taking the exam when in fact he had. The SSRA admitted 

knowing the answer was false when he gave it, and, according to Agent 

Johnson, who was with the SSRA, the SSRA commented at the time he 

answered the question that he had not, in fact, taken the exam without help. 

Agent Johnson said he helped the SSRA during the exam because he was 

worried about the possible consequences of not helping his supervisor. 

However, Agent Johnson knew that the assistance he provided was not 

permitted under the DIOG exam protocols, and he knew that the SSRA gave a 

false answer to Question 51. We believe that Agent Johnson, by consulting 

with the SSRA while the SSRA was taking the DIOG exam, also acted 

improperly, in clear violation of the FBI’s exam rules. 

The technician also helped the SSRA, in part because the technician felt 

bad that his supervisor was having trouble passing. Although the technician 

25 
was not required to take the DIOG training or exam and consequently did not 

receive the same admonishments about prohibited assistance that the SSRA 

and Agent Johnson received, the technician was aware that the SSRA was not 

supposed to have help taking the exam. In addition, the technician told us 

that he volunteered his assistance and did not act because of any pressure 

from the SSRA. 

Finally, we found that the SSA of his own initiative offered most of the 

DIOG test questions and his answers to the SSRA, who was not the SSA’s 

supervisor. Although the SSA said he felt bad that the SSRA was having 

trouble passing, the SSA’s conduct violated DIOG exam protocols. Moreover, 

the SSA was a supervisor himself and was not acting pursuant to any request 

by or pressure from the SSRA. We believe that SSA also acted improperly. 

2. FBI Training Division Component 

An anonymous complainant alleged in writing to the FBI Inspection 

Division in November 2009 that a supervisor of an FBI Training Division 

component had encouraged all his employees who had not yet taken the DIOG 

exam to attend a “review session,” during which they were given all of the 

questions and answers to the exam. 

The OIG investigated this complaint and interviewed 15 of the 

component’s current and former employees about the exam. 

We found that a trainer conducted a training session attended by the 

supervisor and six other employees. During that session the trainer read out 

loud each of the DIOG exam questions verbatim, in order of their appearance 

on the exam, and discussed the correct answers to each. One component 

employee told us that another employee asked during the session if these were 

the actual questions that would be on the exam and the trainer replied that 

they were not. However, the trainer later told the OIG that they in fact were the 

actual questions. 

We interviewed the supervisor, who said he took notes at the training 

session and relied on those notes to answer approximately half of the exam 

questions. He said that anyone who used notes taken during the review 

session and had “half a brain” would do well on the exam. 

The supervisor said that his notes did not “mirror” the exam and he did 

not feel, either during the training session or later, that the trainer had used 

the actual exam questions. However, four component employees told us that 

they noticed as they took the exam that their notes seemed very similar to the 

exam questions. 

We also reviewed notes taken by one employee during the training 

session and noted that they were numbered 1 through 50. Because the notes 

26 
were handwritten they were difficult to decipher in places, but they appeared to 

include both the exam questions and answers in the same order as they 

appeared on the exam. The employee who took those notes told us that he did 

not realize during the training session that the trainer was using the actual 

exam questions and answers. He said that soon after starting the exam and 

noting the equivalence between his notes and the exam questions, it became 

clear to him that the trainer had, in fact, given all the questions and answers, 

in order. 

Several component employees told us that notes similar to those we 

reviewed were passed around the office after the training session. One 

employee who had been out of town during the training session told us that 

upon his return to the office the supervisor personally handed him another 

employee’s notes from the review session. According to the employee who 

received the notes, when he subsequently took the exam he noticed that the 

notes seemed to paraphrase the questions on the exam, were in the same order 

as the questions on the exam, and provided the answers to the questions. 

Therefore, the evidence indicated that many component employees – not just 

those in the training session – were provided with notes that, in effect, listed 

the questions and answers to the exam. 

None of the employees who attended the training session said they 

realized before attending that they were going to be handed the answers, and, 

as noted above, the trainer denied during the actual training session that he 

was reading the questions verbatim. However, we found that some employees 

realized what was happening soon afterward when they started taking the 

exam and discovered that their notes conformed closely to the exam. 

The trainer told the OIG that he did, in fact, read the 50 questions and 

each possible answer out loud, in order, when he taught the training session. 

After discussing the possible answers, he stated which answer was correct and 

why. He said he conducted the training session the way he did because one of 

the component attendees had previously failed the exam. He said that during 

remedial sessions for employees who had failed the exam, he routinely went 

over each question and each answer. He also said that in retrospect, he 

believes he should have given two different sessions: one remedial session for 

the employee who had previously failed, during which he would have reviewed 

the exam questions individually, and a separate training session for employees 

who had not yet taken the exam, during which he would not have used the 

actual questions. 

We concluded that the trainer used poor judgment when he read the 

questions and answers verbatim in the training session. It should have been 

clear to the trainer from the instructions the FBI had given in connection with 

the training for and administration of the DIOG exam that he was supposed to 

27 
 

 

be training on the DIOG in general and that it would be inappropriate to give 

his students what in essence was an answer key to the exam. 

We also concluded that the supervisor who attended the session used 

poor judgment. Although we do not believe that he realized beforehand that 

the training session would include the questions and answers, we believe that 

he should have appreciated – either during or shortly after the session – that 

had in fact occurred. Other component employees realized this and we believe 

the supervisor should have also. More important, we believe he should have 

discouraged his employees from passing around notes taken during the session 

which, in effect, provided the exam questions and answers. 

3. Counterterrorism Division Unit 

The OIG received information that an employee in an FBI 

Counterterrorism Division Unit e-mailed a printed DIOG answer sheet to two 

other employees in August 2009. 

We reviewed the e-mail, which was sent on August 7, 2009, by an 

intelligence analyst in the Unit to two other analysts who worked in the same 

Unit. The subject line of the e-mail contained a single word: “blah.” The email contained no text and included an attachment labeled “Exam questions 

for DIOG.doc.” The attachment was a 5-page typed document that contained 

47 of the 50 questions from the DIOG, in order, with answers for each of the 

questions.12 Later that same day, one of the two recipients sent the sending 

analyst a reply e-mail that stated, “Thanks buddy.” The other recipient did not 

respond. 

We compared the e-mailed answer sheet with the official answer sheet 

prepared by the FBI and determined that the e-mailed answer sheet had six 

incorrect answers. Test data provided by the FBI show that the Unit analyst 

who sent the answer sheet first took the exam on July 15, 2009, and failed it at 

least once before passing it on October 6, 2009. 

The analyst who e-mailed the answer sheet told us that he created the 

answer sheet after he had taken the exam the first time and failed it. When he 

took it a second time, he said, he wrote down the questions and the answers so 

that if he failed a second time he could review them and determine where he 

had gone wrong. He said he subsequently agreed to send a colleague a copy of 

the DIOG questions only, but he inadvertently sent both the questions and the 

answers. He told us that he did not remember how the topic of sending the 

12 The answer sheet did not contain the questions or answers for three questions (2, 5 

and 49). 

28 
questions to his colleague arose. He said that he passed the exam in October, 

on his fourth try. 

We also interviewed the two Unit analysts who received the e-mail. One 

told us that he briefly opened the attachment when he received the e-mail in 

August. He said he did not look at it long enough to realize that it contained 

an answer sheet until several days later, when the sender came to apologize to 

him, telling him that he had meant to send only the questions but had instead 

inadvertently sent both the questions and the answers. He said that after 

learning this, he did not attempt to open the attachment again. 

The other recipient told us that he opened the attachment very briefly, 

did not realize what it was, and closed it without examining it further. Both 

said that they did not use the answer sheet to help them pass the exam and 

that they took the exam for the first time in October shortly after receiving a 

warning from their supervisors that the deadline for completing the exam was 

quickly approaching. 

We compared the answers that the three Unit analysts gave on their 

exams and found that each received a different score from the others and often 

missed different questions. The analyst who sent the sheet first opened the 

exam on July 15, 2009, and eventually passed it on October 6, 2009, after 

having spent a total of 318 minutes working on it. FBI computer data shows 

that he gave incorrect answers (on his passing exam) to questions 12, 19, 32, 

34, 41, 45, 46, and 50 for a final score of 84%. One of the analysts who 

received the answer sheet opened the exam on October 7, 2009, at 9:30 a.m. 

and passed it after spending close to 2 hours working on it. FBI data shows 

that he gave incorrect answers to questions 5, 7, 13, 24, 46, 49, and 50, for a 

final score of 86%. The other analyst who received the answer sheet opened 

the exam on October 7, 2009, at 1:42 p.m. and passed it after spending 38 

minutes working on it. FBI data show that he gave incorrect answers to 

questions 12, 32, 41, 46, and 50, for a score of 90%. 

We credited the statement of the person who created the answer sheet 

that he had done so solely to help himself in the event that he failed the exam. 

We also credited his statement that he sent the document to two colleagues 

thinking that it contained the exam questions only and not the answers. The 

evidence supports the statements of his two colleagues that they opened the 

document, did not realize what it was, and did not use it to help them complete 

the exam. 

29 
IV. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

A. Conclusions 

In our investigation we interviewed employees in four FBI field offices and 

also investigated three complaints of alleged cheating. In that limited review, 

we found significant abuses and cheating on the FBI DIOG exam. 

Many of the FBI employees we interviewed commented on perceived 

deficiencies in the DIOG training and exam, such as the amount of time 

consumed by the training and the exam, the difficulty of the test, and the 

exam’s wording and administration. The training was time-consuming, the 

exam was substantively harder than most FBI training exams, its 

administration was different from previous exams, and some of the questions 

were poorly phrased. 

However, we do not believe those factors excuse the cheating and 

improper conduct that we found that some FBI employees engaged in when 

taking this test. The new DIOG is a fundamental document for ensuring that 

FBI investigations are conducted according to law and policy, and the FBI 

appropriately placed a high priority on ensuring that FBI personnel learned 

and understood the new guidelines through training and mandatory testing. 

Yet, a significant number of the FBI employees we interviewed cheated on the 

test and did not comply with the test conditions. 

We agree, as some employees told us during this investigation, that the 

administration of and communication about the exam for FBI employees could 

have been better. The training was conducted by several hundred different 

trainers in scores of different classrooms, so different employees in different 

locations probably received different information. Because few of the training 

sessions were recorded, it is impossible to know exactly how the trainings 

differed, although some employees told us they remembered very little 

discussion about consulting with other employees while others said it was 

clearly covered. In addition, as some employees told us, there were some 

glitches with the electronic version of the exam. Some employees were 

frustrated, for example, that they took the entire exam and closed it, only to 

learn later that there was no record of their efforts and thus they had to retake 

the exam. 

Furthermore, we agree with the many employees who commented that 

the DIOG exam was significantly different from the typical FBI exam. It was 

more rigorous, did not tell employees as they selected answers whether their 

answers were correct or not, did not allow employees to return to a previous 

answer to correct it, and specifically prohibited employees from collaborating 

with others. 

30 
Despite these differences, the written test instructions and most trainers 

effectively communicated the core instruction that although the exam was 

“open book” employees were not permitted to consult with others in answering 

the exam questions. 

Yet, as detailed in this report, we found test-taking conduct that 

constituted cheating and abuse, such as the use of answer sheets when taking 

the exam; the use of study guides that in effect gave the questions on the exam 

with the answers; consultation with others during the exam; false certifications 

in response to Question 51; and, even the use of a computer programming flaw 

to reveal the correct answers to the exam. 

We found distribution or use of answer sheets, particularly in Field Office 

1, but also in two of the other offices we visited. Ten FBI employees we 

interviewed (in Field Offices 1, 2, and 4, and a resident agency) used or 

distributed answer sheets on the exam, and we received information that 

answer sheets were widely available to others in Field Office 1. We concluded 

that by using other people’s answers to the exam, FBI personnel “consulted” 

with others in violation of test-taking protocols, even though they received the 

answers before taking the exam. Similarly, we concluded that by providing 

answers to others for their use in taking the exam, those who distributed 

answer sheets for use by others acted improperly. 

We also found distribution and use of “study guides” that contained the 

questions to the test and the answers to the questions highlighted. We believe 

that these “study guides” served a similar purpose as answer sheets. For 

example, in Field Office 2, four FBI employees we interviewed used guides that 

contained highlighted portions of the DIOG attached to each exam question, in 

effect giving users the answer to each question on the exam. Another employee 

in Field Office 2 told us that his supervisor had told him that “everyone” in his 

squad was taking the exam using a copy of the DIOG in which the important 

parts had been highlighted. 

One particularly disturbing means of violating FBI rules occurred when 

four agents took advantage of “sloppy” computer programming to look at the 

answers to DIOG exam questions. This was clearly improper. 

In addition, in one resident agency, one FBI employee admitted to 

consulting with others about the answers while taking the exam, and three 

others admitted to helping that employee. Despite consulting others for 

answers to the exam, the employee who received help falsely certified in 

response to Question 51 that he had “only consulted the DIOG, notes, or 

training aides but no other person while taking this exam.” 

We were also concerned by the fact that several supervisors and trainers 

were involved in the abuses regarding the exam, including a legal advisor, an 

31 
ASAC, and an SSA in Field Office 1, an SSRA and an SSA in a resident agency, 

and an ASAC in Field Office 2. 

In addition, we concluded that a legal advisor in Field Office 1 attempted 

to impede the OIG’s investigation by telling another legal advisor “don’t throw 

me under the bus” in connection with an upcoming OIG interview. We found 

that the legal advisor lacked candor about the legal advisor’s purpose in 

making this statement when we asked about it. 

We were troubled by the various justifications offered by agents and 

supervisors for their actions. For example, a legal advisor in Field Office 1 said 

he regarded the DIOG exam process as just another bureaucratic impediment, 

which we found to be an irresponsible attitude for someone in his position. In 

addition, although several agents told us they believed answer sheets 

constituted permissible “notes,” we do not believe that any FBI employee could 

reasonably believe that using someone else’s answers to the exam comported 

with the test instructions and verbal guidance instructing them to work alone. 

We believe the extent of the cheating related to this test was greater than 

the cases we detailed in this report, which is based on our limited investigation 

in only four FBI field offices, one resident agency, and two Headquarters 

components. We believe this for two main reasons. 

First, we acknowledge that our investigation was not random. Of the FBI 

employees that we interviewed about their conduct in taking the DIOG exam, 

22 cheated or acted improperly in some manner related to the exam. We 

recognize that the amount of cheating that we identified in our limited 

interviews cannot be extrapolated to the entire population of FBI test-takers. 

However, while our sample was not random the factors we used to select 

field offices or some of the individuals we interviewed – short exam times and 

suspicious e-mails – were not necessarily indicators of cheating. Rather, we 

found that many persons with short exam times did not cheat, and many 

persons who did cheat took a long time to complete the exam. In addition, the 

e-mails we saw before investigating those field offices did not, in general, lead 

us directly to the persons who we identified as having cheated. Instead, some 

of the FBI employees who we found had cheated were not identified by either 

suspicious e-mails or short test times. 

Second, our investigation revealed evidence that other employees in the 

field offices we visited, and employees in other field offices, may also have used 

similar improper tactics in taking the test. For example, agents in Field Office 

1 told us that at least 30 other FBI employees on 3 different squads in that 

office had access to answer sheets. An employee in Field Office 2 told us that 

his supervisor had told him that “everyone” in his squad was taking the exam 

using a copy of the DIOG in which the important parts had been highlighted. 

32 
Employees in other FBI field offices also told us that they had sent answer 

sheets to other employees, and that others knew about the XML file that 

contained the answers to the exam. We did not investigate all of these leads or 

attempt to interview agents in all of the FBI’s field offices and Headquarter 

components. 

Thus, while we cannot extrapolate the percentage of cheating we 

identified in the limited sample of Field Offices and FBI employees we 

interviewed to the entire population of FBI test-takers, we believe there was 

more cheating and improper conduct than we identified through our limited 

interviews and investigation. 

B.	 Recommendations 

We are referring the findings of this report to the FBI for its review and 

action. We believe the FBI should take appropriate disciplinary action against 

those employees identified by the OIG who cheated or engaged in inappropriate 

conduct related to the DIOG exam. Given the number of FBI field offices and 

the issues that this report raised, we also believe the FBI should consider steps 

to determine whether other FBI employees cheated on or engaged in 

inappropriate conduct related to the DIOG, and, if so, take appropriate action 

regarding those employees. We also believe the FBI should implement 

additional testing on the DIOG, given the problems we found in the 

administration and taking of this test. 

1.	 The FBI should take appropriate disciplinary action 

against those employees identified by the OIG who 

cheated or engaged in inappropriate conduct related to 

the DIOG exam. 

As described in this report, in our limited investigation at several FBI 

offices, we found that many FBI employees violated various FBI rules in 

connection with the exam by consulting with others, falsely certifying that they 

had consulted with no one, using answer sheets or study guides that provided 

the questions and answers on the exam, or exploiting flawed computer 

programming to reveal the answers on the test. 

We recommend that the FBI take appropriate disciplinary actions against 

those employees. 

2.	 The FBI should consider taking appropriate steps to 

determine whether other FBI employees cheated or 

engaged in inappropriate conduct related to the DIOG 

exam, and, if so, take appropriate action. 

In addition to the employees that we identified during our investigation, 

we learned that other employees may also have engaged in cheating or other 

33 
inappropriate actions. For example, although we did not interview them, we 

were given the names of several employees in Field Office 1 who were given 

copies of answer sheets. Employees in other field offices also told us that they 

had sent answer sheets to others, and that other employees knew about the 

XML file that contained the answers to the exam. 

We recommend that the FBI consider appropriate steps to determine 

whether other test-takers cheated or engaged in inappropriate conduct related 

to the DIOG exam, and, if so, take appropriate action. For example, the FBI 

could consider sending an inquiry to all employees who took the DIOG exam 

seeking voluntary disclosure of any cheating on the exam, and the FBI could 

then consider what actions to take based on the responses and all other 

information that has been gathered. 

3. The FBI should draft and disseminate a new DIOG exam. 

Our findings, and those of the FBI Inspection Division concerning senior 

officials in the WFO, raise questions about the effectiveness of the FBI’s 

training and testing on the new DIOG. We recognize that many FBI employees 

took the training and the exam seriously and appropriately complied with all 

the requirements regarding the exam. Unfortunately for them, the actions of 

others within the FBI undermined the effectiveness of the exam as a whole. We 

therefore recommend that the FBI consider creating a new DIOG exam and 

requiring that FBI employees take and pass it. While this may be burdensome 

for some FBI employees, it will also have the benefit of reinforcing the concepts 

of the DIOG on a regular basis. 

We understand that the FBI is already revising the DIOG. We believe 

that another exam when the DIOG is revised would be useful and could 

address some of the deficiencies in the first DIOG test. 

C. Summary 

To its credit, the FBI implemented training and a rigorous exam on the 

important requirements of the new DIOG. Unfortunately, the actions of some 

FBI employees undermined those actions. In our limited investigation, we 

found that a significant number of FBI employees engaged in some form of 

improper conduct or cheating on the DIOG exam, some in clear violation of FBI 

directives regarding the exam. Some consulted with others while taking the 

exam when that was specifically forbidden by the test-taking protocols. Others 

used or distributed answers sheets or study guides that essentially provided 

the answers to the test. A few exploited a programming flaw to reveal the 

answers to the exam. Several supervisors, including two ASACs, two SSAs, 

and a legal advisor, were involved in such cheating. Almost all of those who 

cheated falsely certified on Question 51 (the final question of the exam) that 

they had not consulted with others. 

34 
We recommend that the FBI take action regarding those who cheated on 

the DIOG exam, consider other appropriate steps to determine whether other 

test-takers engaged in similar inappropriate conduct, and also conduct a new 

exam on the revised DIOG. 

35