President Trump announced Friday he intends to nominate Robert Wilkie, the acting secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs, to lead the agency.
“I’ll be informing him in a little while, he doesn’t know this yet, that we’re going to be putting his name up for nomination to be secretary of the Veterans Administration,” Trump announced during remarks at the White House prison reform summit. Wilkie stood up and shook Trump’s hand as the audience applauded.
The president said Wilkie has done an “incredible job” in his role as acting secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Most recently, Wilkie served in the Defense Department as the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness and was tapped to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs in an acting role after former VA Secretary David Shulkin left the post in March.
President Trump on Robert Wilkie: “We’re going to be putting his name up for nomination to be Secretary of the Veterans Administration.” pic.twitter.com/uXs4loUbpP
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 18, 2018
The president initially nominated Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, the White House physician, to replace Shulkin. But Jackson withdrew his name from consideration in April after allegations of workplace misconduct surfaced.
Jackson was accused of drinking on the job and over-prescribing medications. He has denied the allegations.
Wilkie, an officer in the Air Force Reserve, served as assistant secretary of defense during President George W. Bush’s administration from 2005 to 2009, according to his biography from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Before his first stint at the Pentagon, he worked as the special assistant to the president for national security affairs and was a senior director of the National Security Council under former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Wilkie also worked as a senior adviser to Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and as an adviser on international security affairs to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
