The Department of Veterans Affairs’ top watchdog is stepping down just hours after whistleblowers accused him of covering up wrongdoing and called on President Obama to boot him from the post.
Deputy Inspector General Richard Griffin, in a statement the agency released late Tuesday afternoon, thanked his staff and said his office had produced a “remarkable record of performance and outstanding achievements.”
Griffin, who spent 43 years working in the federal government and was serving as an interim IG, said his last day will be the Fourth of July and quoted former President John F. Kennedy on changes in life.
“Change is the law of life, and those who only look to the past or the present are certain to miss the future,” he said at the top of his statement.
The department said Linda Halliday, an assistant inspector general for audits and evaluations will replace Griffin until Obama names a permanent replacement and the Senate confirms the nomination.
His departure came the same day a group of whistleblowers from facilities across the country wrote a letter to Obama accusing him of whitewashing reports in the wake of the Veterans Affairs wait-time scandal last year.
While the inspector general is supposed to serve as an independent watchdog to investigate fraud, corruption and waste and abuse within the agency, critics say Griffin and his chief deputy for health care investigations, have instead targeted whistleblowers, failed to look into the problems they have raised and tried to circumvent Congressional oversight.
The whistleblowers, called VA Truth Tellers, in their letter to Obama accused Griffin of a “horrifying pattern of whitewashing and deceit.”
“Whistleblowers, VA employees, American taxpayers, and most importantly of all, our veterans, have lost confidence and trust in Mr. Griffin and the VA OIG,” they wrote in a letter signed by group leaders Shea Wilkes from the Shreveport, La., VA and Germaine Clarno of the Hines, Ill., VA.
“New leadership is needed to correct the epidemic of rampant corruption that is prevalent throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs. Our nation’s veterans have earned and deserve better. Mr. Griffin should be relieved of duty immediately.”
Griffin served as a deputy inspector general since December 2013 when his predecessor retired. But Obama left him in the interim position without naming a full-fledge watchdog, which the Senate must confirm.
His office completed an investigation of opiate prescription abuse at the VA Medical Center in Tomah, Wis., last year but closed the probe without disclosing its findings publicly or to Congress.
Five months later, a Marine Corps veteran in his mid-30s died from mixed drug toxicity at Tomah after his doctors added another opiate to his cocktail of 14 existing prescriptions.
In announcing his retirement, Griffin vigorously defended his 14-year record at the VA inspector general’s office
In the last six years alone, he said the VA OIG has produced 1,931 reports that lead to 11,340 arrest, indictments, convictions and administrative sanctions.
He also noted that in April 2015, the Brookings Center for Effective Public Management named his office the second most productive inspector general in the federal government.
“In terms of transparent reporting to Congress, OIG staff have testified at 76 congressional hearings and delivered 452 briefings on problems in VA operations and programs and ideas on how to solve them,” he wrote.
