One of President Trump’s signature initiatives to turn
around a culture of retaliation against whistleblowers at the Department of
Veterans Affairs is an office in disarray that instead has punished them — and
held almost no wrongdoers accountable.
Those are the conclusions of a scathing report released
Thursday by the agency’s inspector general, which found that the Office of
Accountability and Whistleblower Protection created early in Trump’s term in
2017 has failed in its core mission.
The president heralded the office as a tool to clean up the
troubled agency. More than two years later it resembles a kangaroo court, the
inspector general found, running inferior investigations that VA attorneys
cannot trust and “floundering” in its duty to protect employees who report
wrongdoing.
Just one senior manager has been removed by an office
created to discipline senior-level managers involved in misconduct, Inspector
General Michael Missal found.
The office has shown “significant deficiencies,” including
poor leadership, skimpy training of investigators, a misunderstanding of its
mission and a failure to discipline senior leaders, according to the 100-page
report.
“Notably, in its first two years of operation, the [office]
acted in ways that were inconsistent with its statutory authority while it
simultaneously floundered in its mission to protect whistleblowers,” the report
says. VA “created an office culture that was sometimes alienating to the very
individuals it was meant to protect.”
In response, VA spokeswoman Christina Mandreucci said in a
statement that the report “largely focuses on [the office’s] operations under
previous leaders who no longer work at VA.” She said its new leadership has independently
identified many of the issues the inspector general highlights and is moving to
make changes, ensuring greater oversight over investigations and halting
retaliation against whistleblowers.
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