Both women told legislators that one of the reasons their supervisors felt free to abuse them was that there is no effective whistleblower protection in place at VA. “There are no easy avenues to obtain relief from VA retaliation, and VA administrators know it,” Mitchell declared.
They had each contacted the VA Office of Special Counsel and later the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection, a new office created by President Donald Trump through executive order in 2017.
“[My VA supervisors] refused to respond when OSC contacted them, and I had to file another retaliation complaint, then wait 15 months because there was a backlog,” Mitchell testified. “I contacted OAWP in 2017 looking to file a claim. Sixteen months later, I finally got a response asking if I was still interested in filing.”
In October 2018, OSC found evidence of ongoing retaliation against Mitchell. She entered into mediation with VA through the OSC’s alternative dispute resolution process. As of her testimony, that mediation had dragged on for nine months with no end in sight.
According to some critics, OAWP has added bureaucracy rather than protection for whistleblowers.
“While the impetus behind the agency is sensible, [when it was created, we were concerned] that creating such an office within the agency itself will cause more harm than good,” explained Rebecca Jones, policy counsel for the Project on Government Oversight. “We worried that the internal office would become a clearing house used to identify and retaliate against whistleblowers, and that it wouldn’t hold senior officials accountable due to its lack of independence.”
Some of those initial fears might be proving true, Jones noted. Last year, both the Government Accountability Office and OAWP itself released reports suggesting that the office bends justice in favor of accused VA leadership.
During the first year of OAWP’s existence, 36.4% of disciplinary actions were taken against G1-G6 employees and only 0.1% were against senior leadership.
“The reports also found that employees accused of misconduct were participating in investigations into their own behavior,” Jones testified. “This includes managers investigating themselves or misconduct.”
OAWP is currently the subject of an ongoing investigation at the VA Office of the Inspector General.
The hearing last month did not include invitations to VA leadership to testify, a fact that upset some Republican legislators, as well as VA Secretary Robert Wilkie.
“When the committee holds a hearing to air criticisms of the department, while simultaneously preventing the department from participating to offer context and defend itself, the committee’s efforts risk appearing more like a political press conference than a hearing aimed at a balanced look at serious issues,” Wilkie said in a letter to committee leaders. “If this is how the committee intends to conduct oversight of the department in the future, an exclusionary approach could chip away at the committee’s oft stated goal of bipartisanship.”
Committee leaders almost immediately scheduled two future hearings—a continuation of the whistleblower hearing, and one looking at the ongoing effects of the revelations at Phoenix.
