The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday stripped away a key job responsibility from a whistleblower who has received national attention for his efforts to point out flaws within the troubled VA system, leading the whistleblower to predict he would soon be fired.
Scott Davis is a public affairs officer for Member Services in Atlanta who has appeared on national television and testified several times in Congress.
In prior years, his job gave him a role communicating with veterans, and dealing with website content and project management. However, Davis said he has not been given projects involving contact with veterans for about a year now.
Last week, Davis complained that other staffers were posting content to the website without his approval and without notifying him. And on Monday, he was told he would no longer have access to an internal document management system where projects were coordinated.
In emails shared with the Washington Examiner, Davis was told that he would no longer have access to the document management system.
David told the Washington Examiner that it’s becoming unclear to him what work he can do at the VA at this point.
“I don’t know,” he said when asked. “Nothing.” Davis said he has not been told explicitly that his job is being phased out, but said that is the effective result of the VA’s decision.
“This is how they’re going to get rid of me as a whistleblower,” he said. “For them to do that is clearly targeting a single employee.”
VA officials in Georgia did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. A spokesman in Washington said only that Davis’ employment status “has not changed.”
Davis was one of several whistleblowers who told the Washington Examiner in May that retaliation against employees who point out the VA’s flaws is getting worse. Davis said then that he was reprimanded for not taking orders about website content from an official who was not his direct superior, and predicted that he would be fired soon.
“It’s a fast track to termination,” he said then.
In April, Davis revealed that the VA had failed to contact hundreds of thousands of veterans seeking healthcare by mail last year. Data provided by Davis showed that almost half the letters the VA sent out to veterans bounced back.
