President Trump made big promises during his 2016 campaign about cleaning house at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Unfortunately, whether he realizes or not, things there have gotten much worse since he took office.
The U.S. Office of the Special Counsel, or OSC, whose role is to protect whistleblowers from retaliation, has been on a virtual hiatus for the past two years. It is even less responsive now than it had been under previous administrations.
Recently, several whistleblowers at the Veterans Health Administration Member Services office in Atlanta did get a response from OSC, but not the one they were looking for. Instead of protecting the whistleblowers, OSC officials decided to take the side of the VA leadership.
They authorized VA to conduct an illegal criminal investigation into whistleblowers who had previously reported wrongdoing by VA management officials.
According to the VA Office of the Medical Inspector, or OMI, OSC contacted former Secretary David Shulkin on Feb. 13 for the purpose of investigating a complaint that several known VA whistleblowers, including myself, had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. That law was established to address criminal cyberactivity involving government computer systems, not to retaliate against whistleblowers who may have discovered and reported wrongdoing because of emails they received in the course of their jobs.
Apparently, the VA thinks it is a good use of OMI’s time to persecute whistleblowers for speaking to Congress instead of investigating the myriad problems with VA’s handling of veteran patient care. The “M,” after all, does stand for “medical.”
In any case, OMI deceived me and other whistleblowers who were the subject of the investigation. VA employees questioned as part of this illegal criminal inquiry were not given their Miranda rights as is required by law.
OMI investigators also deliberately violated the Whistleblower Protection Act and my First Amendment rights by questioning me about conversations I had with congressional investigators with the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs committees. They demanded to know the names of sources for articles I have written as a journalist in my private capacity outside of my employment at VA.
Perhaps the saddest part of this inept caper by VA leadership and OSC is that the complaint was filed by former disgraced Health Eligibility Center Director Angelica Lawrence. Lawrence, a former Department of Justice employee, was removed from her position after Atlanta media outlets exposed her electronic communications with a subordinate employee joking about putting the “parasitic” class in ovens.
Investigators running the probe should have known that it was unwarranted because it had nothing to do with prohibited personnel practices, whistleblower retaliation, waste, fraud, or abuse of power. If Shulkin or other top officials truly believed VA whistleblowers were illegally accessing government email systems, they should have contacted the Department of Justice or the VA office of the Inspector General, as suggested by Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
Shulkin ignored this recommendation.
Veterans are a critical political constituency for President Trump. His administration can’t afford to have negative press coverage about Trump’s failed promises to reform VA. This might explain why the war on whistleblowers has intensified during his time in office.
This VA and OSC cybercrimes investigation is another example of how far Trump administration officials will go to silence whistleblowers from exposing their failure to achieve any of Trump’s VA objectives, including improvement of wait times for veterans seeking healthcare; creation of accountability and removal of corrupt managers; and modernization of major veteran computer record systems like VISTA and the VHA Enrollment System.
This Memorial Day will be Trump’s first stateside opportunity to address the sacrifices veterans and their families have made to preserve our nation’s freedom.
Trump owes veterans and the American people an honest, detailed explanation about his true plans for improving veteran access to healthcare beyond privatization. It’s also a chance for him to reaffirm his support for whistleblowers who are trying to help him keep his promises to veterans.
Scott Davis (@ScottDavis_WB on Twitter) is a VA whistleblower and authority on government reform who testified before Congress in 2014 about the denial of healthcare benefits to veterans.
