Senators on Wednesday signaled their ongoing support for Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who has faced a few scandals over the past few weeks that many thought put him in danger of being fired by President Trump.
“I think I speak for many in this committee to hope that a year from now, we see Secretary Shulkin sitting in that chair,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said at a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing with Shulkin on the VA’s 2019 budget request.
The chairman of that committee, Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., agreed, a strong signal that Shulkin is not facing any significant pressure from the Senate to step down.
“Well, I’ve pretty openly stated that on many occasions in the last two weeks,” Isakson said as he agreed with Brown. “He’s done a great job, veterans have a champion working for them every day as we work through the problems we run into in the swamp from time to time.”
Just a week earlier, Trump was reportedly considering removing Shulkin from his post, after two relatively major scandals.
The first was an Inspector General report that said Shulkin’s staff lied about the nature of his trip to Europe in order to justify having the government pay for his wife to attend. The second was another IG report that said VA leadership did nothing to fix up the Washington, D.C. medical center despite warnings about its condition a few years ago.
Shulkin responded by quickly ordering unscheduled visits to VA clinics around the country, and promising change.
Some think Shulkin might yet be undone by pending IG reports that are expected to say the secretary asked his staff to run personal errands for him, and outline wasteful spending as the VA transitions to an electronic health records system.
