“Since 1986,” writes Mueller, “the False Claims Act has been used to recover some sixty billion stolen tax dollars, and has deterred an estimated $1 trillion more in fraud.” Whether writing about drug companies that conceal unfavorable evidence, hospitals that engage in needless admissions, or nuclear facilities that waste public funds, the author engrossingly examines the ethics, mechanics, and reverberations of whistleblowing of all kinds, emphasizing how bitterly controversial the practice remains, posing a clash between group loyalty and individual conscience. Beginning in the late 1960s, informants like Ralph Nader and Daniel Ellsberg “galvanized” America over wrongdoing, “from cybercrime to credit card scams to identity theft, from criminal college admissions conspiracies to systemic wrongdoing by automobile companies to wholesale money laundering and looting of national treasuries by banks.” Drawing on interviews with more than 200 whistleblowers and many lawyers and experts, the author offers revealing human stories about numerous insiders and outsiders, both well- and little-known, who have engaged in this “vital crime-fighting paradigm” under federal laws that provide job protection and financial incentives (a percentage of money recovered by the government).
“This is the age of the whistleblower,” writes Mueller ( Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, 2011). An unusually deep dive into whistleblowing.
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