From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Three years ago, we interviewed Scott Block, chief of the Office of Special Counsel. That's the government agency that is supposed to shield civic-minded government whistleblowers from retaliation. We had him on to answer charges from watchdog

groups that he was burying investigations and politicizing his office. He denied it.

Sometimes I wonder if you have to fall through the rabbit hole to live in Washington.

Things seem to be turned on their head in the media. The truth is, I took an oath of office

to defend whistleblowers and to take the meritorious

claims and push him to the limit. And that's exactly what we're doing. But controversy once again

swirls around Block. This week, he was back in the news when FBI agents raided his home in office,

seized computers, and issued subpoenas to 17 employees.

One of the organizations that first blew the whistle on block was public employees for

environmental responsibility.

Executive Director Jeff Rook says his group's complaint ultimately led to the FBI raid.

The special counsel is, as we understand it, being charged with obstructing the investigation into our complaint.

What was your original complaint back in 2005?

It was a multi-part complaint that involved purging the staff, retaliating against whistleblowers,

issuing illegal gag orders, improper refusal to enforce laws, and politicizing the Hatch Act enforcement.

We filed this complaint back in March 2005, and we still don't have the results of that investigation.

What we have is this interim step where the FBI is now intervened.

So do you suspect that there was actually criminal misconduct going on in the Office of Special

Counsel?

There have been many media reports about his efforts to obstruct the investigation, prevent

his staff from interviewing with investigators as well as destroying

...