Veterans Affairs Investigators Fault Whistleblower Office Created by Trump
An office formed by Mr. Trump to protect whistleblowers in the Department of Veterans Affairs was instead used to stifle claims and retaliate against those trying to expose problems at the agency, according to an inspector general report released Thursday. First created by presidential order in 2017 and later mandated by Congress, the VA’s Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection was set up as a clearinghouse for employees exposing wrongdoing at the department and was part of the president’s efforts to carry out campaign pledges to overhaul the VA.
But the office’s first executive director, Peter O’Rourke, instead used his position to stifle claims and retaliate against the employees the new organization had been designed to protect, the IG report found. Mr. O’Rourke, who once directed a conservative political action committee and then consulted for the VA, leveraged his power as head of the whistleblower office to end investigations into allies and failed to provide basic reports to Congress on the office’s operations, investigators said.
Mr. O’Rourke eventually rose to acting secretary of the VA before leaving the department last year. He is now the executive director of the Florida Republican Party. Mr. O’Rourke declined to comment on the report, referring all questions to the VA. In a statement Thursday, a VA spokeswoman said the report focuses on officials who are no longer at the department and doesn’t address improvements made since their departure.
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Mr. O’Rourke himself appeared to intervene to tamp down an investigation involving someone he had a personal relationship with, according to investigators. Mr. O’Rourke allegedly sped the investigation to a favorable conclusion while the whistleblower became the subject of an investigation. On two other occasions, Mr. O’Rourke directly engaged in retaliatory actions against whistleblowers, according to investigators, downgrading their jobs. In one case, Mr. O’Rourke opened an investigation into a whistleblower that ended in disciplinary action in a less-than nine-day investigation, the report said. At the time, an average investigation took 215 days to complete, according to the report. The office didn’t value protecting the identities of whistleblowers, according to investigators, and routinely closed investigations when whistleblowers requested to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution. The office would also inform other offices in the VA about allegations, exposing whistleblowers to identification and retribution, the report said.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/veterans-affairs-investigators-fault-whistleblower-office-created-by-trump-11571925164 (paid subscription)
