All six major veterans advocacy groups are calling for the resignation of the secretary of Veterans Affairs after the department’s inspector general released a report accusing him of botching an investigation into an allegation of sexual assault at a VA hospital.
On Saturday, the American Legion and Vietnam Veterans of America joined Veterans of Foreign Wars, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, and AMVETS in calling for Secretary Robert Wilkie to resign.
The report, released on Thursday, said that a female veteran accused a contractor at the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center of assaulting her while she was waiting for an appointment. She said he “bumped his entire body against mine and told me I looked like I needed a smile and a good time.”
The report stated that VA officials “questioned the complaint’s credibility from the start.”
“The accountability, professionalism and respect that our veterans have earned, and quite frankly deserve, is completely lost in this current VA leadership team,” said B.J. Lawrence, the executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “Secretary Wilkie must resign now.”
“It is unfair to expect accountability from the nearly 400,000 VA employees and not demand the same from its top executive,” said American Legion National Commander James Oxford. “It is clear that Secretary Robert Wilkie failed to meet the standard that the veteran who came forward with the complaint deserved.”
“Within hours of receiving word about the complaint on Friday evening, senior VA officials began communicating about whether the veteran had previously complained about verbal abuse from a VA provider at another facility,” read the report. “The next day, Secretary Wilkie speculated in an email that Chairman Takano was ‘laying the grounds for a spectacle.'”
The report stated that VA Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs Curtis Cashour told a journalist, “[Y]ou may want to look into — see — if she’s done this sort of thing in the past.”
While the report specified that they were not able to substantiate that Wilkie investigated or asked others to investigate the veteran, it also said that the VA office refused to cooperate fully with the inspector general investigation.
The report concluded that VA officials “did not fully consider or take appropriate administrative and other corrective actions despite having access to relevant information.”
“After nearly a year of investigation, interviews with 65 people, and analysis of nearly 1.5 million documents, VA’s inspector general cannot substantiate that I sought to investigate or asked others to investigate the veteran,” Wilkie said in a statement. “That’s because these allegations are false.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress have joined in the calls for his resignation.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment on the matter.
