WASHINGTON — Bradley Linskens, the former top examiner of Wells Fargo at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, sued the agency Tuesday over records requests he had made related to his removal from that job earlier this year.
Linskens, who is still with the agency, was removed from his role last month shortly before the release of an internal report that criticized the OCC's handling of the Wells' phony-accounts scandal. He filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency on April 12, according to the complaint.
His request included employee exchanges related to his “investigation or proposed investigation,” as well as correspondence with reporters regarding him.
But the agency has failed to respond to his request or indicate when it planned to provide him with the documents.
When the Wells Fargo accounts scandal broke, the OCC took pains to evaluate its oversight of the San Francisco bank. In that internal report, it pointed to repeated failures by on-the-ground examiners to investigate warning signs at the bank.
But some within the agency saw the report as an attempt by leadership to scapegoat lower-level OCC employees. The agency head at the time, Thomas Curry, resigned this month and was replaced by Keith Noreika, the acting comptroller of the currency appointed by President Trump.
