Aleta Busselman claims Battelle Memorial Institute unlawfully demoted her at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) after she declined to make changes to a report investigating the theft of government money at the lab. In December 2016, Battelle/PNNL made a $530,000 payment to a fraudulent payee posing as a subcontractor. Busselman alleges PNNL management was “dissatisfied” with the report and pressured her to change the findings “because [they] felt that the language made management look bad” and “would not put the Lab in a good light.”