An administrative judge sided with the Bureau of Land Management’s former top law enforcement official in a yearslong legal battle over his dismissal amid assertions he was being punished for complaints about a top BLM official.
Administrative Judge Evan Roth with the Merit Systems Protection Board issued a decision Friday that Eric Kriley, the former director of BLM’s Office of Law Enforcement and Security, should be reinstated to the post he was abruptly removed from in October 2021.Kriley, who was initially hired as OLES director in 2020 during President Donald Trump’s first term, had accused a senior bureau official of trying to improperly exert influence over internal investigations.
Roth gave BLM 60 days from the date his May 9 order becomes final — set for June 13 — to “cancel” Kriley’s October 2021 removal and “retroactively restore him as Director of the Office of Law Enforcement and Security.”
Jason O’Neal was appointed OLES director in April 2022.
Kriley issued an emailed statement through his attorney saying he plans to once again lead the agency that oversees about 270 rangers and special agents responsible for enforcing federal laws and protecting natural resources on the 245 million acres BLM manages.
“I am just as excited to lead the BLM Office of Law Enforcement and Security now as I was when I was hired into the position during the first Trump administration,” Kriley said in the statement.
BLM could appeal Roth’s decision to the full Merit Systems Protection Board.
A BLM spokesperson declined to comment on the decision or whether it plans to bring back Kriley, who was demoted in 2021 and transferred to a law enforcement position with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a post he still holds today.
Roth’s decision says Kriley qualifies for federal whistleblower protections, concluding that he was removed as OLES director because he alerted senior bureau officials that his immediate supervisor at the time was attempting to improperly influence internal investigations into possible ethical and legal violations for senior-executive-service-level employees. That supervisor was Mike Nedd, BLM’s deputy director and its top career official.
The decision says “Nedd directed him to provide advance notice into misconduct allegations against SES personnel,” which would have included Nedd himself. Kriley argued this was not allowed.
Roth agreed, noting that Kriley “credibly testified he felt this directive was an impermissible attempt to undermine the OLES’ authority and independence,” according to the decision, which was reviewed by POLITICO’s E&E News.
Nedd also tried to force the BLM law enforcement office to pay for a $330,000 settlement payment out of its budget, which Kriley objected to, the decision said.
That payment was for William Woody — Kriley’s immediate predecessor as OLES director, who was also abruptly removed as director in June 2019 under still mysterious circumstances. Woody challenged his dismissal in an age discrimination and disability complaint against Interior.Woody eventually withdrew his appeal for reinstatement after reaching the settlement with the Interior Department.
Kriley, who before joining BLM served as a law enforcement professional with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, testified that he felt Nedd was trying to punish OLES by suggesting the $330,000 settlement come out of the department’s budget. Ordinarily a settlement would come out of a specific legal fund, not a department’s budget.
Kriley “credibly testified he felt this decision impermissibly punished OLES even though OLES was not responsible for the need to pay out this money in the settlement,” Roth wrote.
What’s more, Roth concluded that this directive “could reasonably be viewed as an abuse of authority by Nedd because it appears to have been a capricious exercise of power that adversely impacted OLES.”
Roth, however, disagreed with Kriley’s assertion that the payment of the settlement itself “was a gross waste of funds and gross mismanagement.”
Nedd did not respond to a request by E&E News through a BLM spokesperson to comment on Roth’s decision.
Kriley’s whistleblower claims center around his March 2021 memorandum outlining his concerns about Nedd that was sent to Nada Wolff Culver, who had just joined BLM two weeks earlier but was BLM’s deputy director of policy and programs while also performing the duties of acting director.
Culver forwarded Kriley’s memo to BLM’s legal team “for guidance” on how to handle it, according to Roth’s decision.
“The March 12 Memo contained numerous accusations against Nedd, and it constitutes the whistleblowing disclosure at issue in this appeal,” Roth wrote.
Nedd testified at a hearing before Roth that he made the decision to fire Kriley — who was still serving his one-year probationary period — three days later, on March 15.
But Roth noted in his decision that Nedd, in testimony he gave in an earlier deposition, said he made the decision to fire Kriley in May or June of that year. Roth wrote “that inconsistency” between Nedd’s deposition and his testimony at the hearing “was one of many that undermined Nedd’s credibility.”
Kriley did not receive a formal termination notice from Nedd until Oct. 19, 2021, at which time Kriley was led out of BLM’s offices in Grand Junction, Colorado, by security personnel and forced to surrender his badge and gun, Katherine Atkinson, Kriley’s attorney, told E&E News at the time.
Atkinson filed a complaint on July 1, 2022, with the Office of Special Counsel and eventually the appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board in April 2023.
“Director Kriley has been vindicated,” Atkinson said in a statement Tuesday.
“The Judge concluded that Mr. Kriley had a reasonable belief that Mr. Nedd abused his authority and that Mr. Nedd’s articulated reasons for removing Mr. Kriley did not withstand scrutiny,”
Atkinson said. “I am heartened that he is being restored to his position to continue the bureau’s work with the integrity he brought to the position from day one.”
Scott Streater can be reached on Signal at s_streater.80.
