Never admit to anything and never sign anything the poly guy gives to you during the exam.  Thats a sure cause for failure.

I have to say I failed my FBI Poly today. I just found this site and thought i would share. 

Pretty much the same thing happened to me I got passed the first set of questions, the SA went over them fours times in different order, then we started the second chart phase with the Drug questions, prior to my actual poly I disclosed all I could remeber and after the 3 pass of questions he stops and get up and gets in front of me and said you fail this area, specifically the use and handling of drugs, I get a confused look on my face because I was 100% honest about my prior use to my memory , I did remember something in the middle of the Poly about another incident that was not  useage and that that may have triggerd a response. anyways he handed me a clip board with a disclosure form and told me to write everything down, then I signed it he signed it and then said he would send the results to the Results examiner and my paperwork to the applicant manager to reexamine my case and he said they may ask me to come back and do the exam again. I am already a federal employee and have had my clearance not a TS mind you buy my clearance. I do hope that someone reads what I wrote and they offer a retest, I was way to jumpy and getting irritated by the second set of questions. Well I thougjht I would share.


Question will a forgotten memory trigger a response? How do the FBI look at it? I wonder?

I was duped into admitting something that was not true. The problem was with my drug question. I provided all information truthfully, but the examiner still said I was not within the authorized bounds. He then handed me a form and said I needed to explain myself. I was really freaked out at the time and not thinking clearly. He kept asking me if I was sure about the number of times I smoked marijuana. I said yes, but he suggested I put down that I was not sure, that it could have been more. I did what he said and I think I will regret that for the rest of my life. I keep replaying it in my mind about how I could have dealt with it differently. I got the letter about three days ago saying my application was terminated because I was holding things back and because my poly results were not acceptable. The problem is I work for a DoD contractor with a job that requires a clearance. I am getting ready to go to law school and will be done before they review my clearance again. I am debating whether I should find another job that does not require a clearance and forget about this nightmare or whether I should role the dice, stay in my current job, and hope I am done before they review the clearance. Any thoughts anyone has on this would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know whether your polygraph results would have been immediately reported to DoD, however they will definitely come up when your clearance is due for a periodic review. A National Agency Check will reveal that you have an FBI HQ file, and that file will then be requested. Your FBI polygraph failure is now an indelible black mark against you.

I do not know whether your FBI HQ file would be released to a bar admittance board, though I doubt it. But even if it were, it seems highly unlikely that a failed polygraph would be used as grounds for denying a person admission to the bar, though admissions attributed to a person might pose an impediment.

It would be prudent to file a Privacy Act request for your entire FBI HQ file, including all documentation associated with your polygraph examination. Some who have done so have discovered that their polygrapher attributed to them admissions they never made.

I recently failed an FBI poly and my application for a support position was terminated. I was wondering what repercussions this would have if I already have a DoD security clearnace? Also what does it mean for non-national security related work? I was thinking of going to law school. Would it effect my abilty to be admitted to the bar? Any one that has answers to these questions, I would appreciate it.