VA whistleblower: Veteran care getting worse as Trump searches for department head
Scott Davis, a veteran who testified before Congress and made several TV appearance about the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs, on Wednesday told FOX Business things have gotten worse at the agency since President Trump took office.
With the exception of the “crisis hotline”, he says, veterans are waiting longer for care.
“The Hill did a report on this just in March, that VA had been caught sending false reports about wait times,” he said during an exclusive interview with Neil Cavuto on “Cavuto: Coast-to-Coast.” “We know that veterans are still waiting, on average, longer for care.”
Despite Trump’s vow to clean up the agency, Davis said the president’s promise has not been fulfilled.
“Even though he is now the new president, the people that run the VA, who were running it into the ground when he was campaigning, are still there,” he said. “People like Dr. Carolyn Clancy who was brought in to run VHA [Veterans Health Administration] four years ago during the height of the scandal.”
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, whose role it is to protect whistleblowers from retaliation, authorized the VA to conduct an investigation against him and other whistleblowers for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which was established to address cybersecurity issues, he said. But instead they conducted a “criminal witch hunt” against whistleblowers.
Davis said he even exchanged emails with the former secretary, David Shulkin, but nothing is changing, and has also been stripped of his job duties in Atlanta. But a VA official responded to the claims denying the allegations.
“They pretty much gutted my position,” he said. “They have to go through the process of firing me, which that’s something they started.”
“They tried to suspend me earlier this year,” he added. “They want all the whistleblowers gone.”
A VA spokesperson told FOX Business that the Trump administration has made progress in the areas including accountability, transparency and efficiency.
“All clinics combined went from 19.1 days to 17.1 days,” from 2014 to 2017, according to Department of Veterans Affairs Press Secretary Curt Cashour.
He added, President Trump replaced Obama administration “holdover” Secretary David Shulkin with Acting Secretary Robert Wilkie.