VA IG, Michael Missal, who was confirmed to the post during Donald Trump’s first term, was fired with other Inspectors Generals of federal agencies. He and seven other fired IGs have filed a lawsuit to be reinstated because they were not given notice or an explanation.
WASHINGTON, DC — Republican legislators are again seeking to provide the VA secretary with expedited firing authority for VA employees that are deemed “bad actors.” According to the bill’s proponents, this is necessary to give VA leaders the power to hold poor-performing employees accountable.
However, some Democratic lawmakers see the legislation and the framing of the conversation around it as an attempt to vilify the federal workforce and give political appointees additional leverage to oust career civil servants.
Meanwhile, VA officials say they neither want nor need this authority, and that they expect its use to be challenged successfully in court, as similar expedited firing authorities have in the past.
In 2017, Congress passed the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act. In addition to establishing the VA Office of Whistleblower Protection, it included a provision that allowed VA to fast-track the suspension, demotion or removal of Title 5 employees. Actions taken under that provision were immediately challenged, and multiple courts eventually ruled that the firings happened illegally because the law does not supersede collective-bargaining agreements with employee unions. VA has since paid out $134 million to 1,700 federal employees fired under the law.
VA informed Congress in 2022 that it would stop using the authority, since it resulted in court appearances rather than satisfactory personnel actions.
The new legislation, the Restore Accountability Act of 2025, restates those provisions from the 2017 bill; bypasses the Title 5 requirement of providing the employee with a performance plan prior to firing; and would “align the disciplinary authority for unsatisfactory VA managers and supervisor with the process currently in place for members of the Senior Executive Service, removing the Merit Systems Protection Board from the process.”
“The intent of [the bill] is to hold that 1% of bad VA employees accountable,” said House VA Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL). “President [Donald] Trump made this message clear during his first administration, but the Biden-Harris administration and liberal courts refused to act and swept accountability under the rug.”
At an VA Oversight Subcommittee hearing last month, VA leaders said that the firing provisions already in place under Title 5 were not only sufficient but preferable because they’ve been upheld in court.
“We have a track record of legally defensible actions under Title 5, because they’ve been before the Merit Systems Protection Board. They’ve been before third parties,” declared Tracey Therit, VA’s chief human capital officer. “Any time we take an action, we want to make sure that employee does not come back if we remove them. If they’re suspended, that suspension is upheld. We want to make sure the actions we’ve taken are legally defensible.”
Asked to describe an instance where VA was unable to fire someone under its existing authority, Therit said, “If there are instances where an employee can’t be removed under Title 5 or Title 38, it’s typically because of a lack of evidence or an inability to support the level of discipline that’s being proposed. Rarely is it the authority that’s limiting it, but rather the substance of the investigation.”
Democrats at the hearing, which was the uncharacteristically partisan title of “VA First, Veterans Second: The Biden-Harris Legacy,” protested what they characterized as Republican’s purposeful weakening of the federal workforce.
“The title of this hearing and the Republican majority’s approach to this topic makes it clear to me that not everyone in this room takes this responsibility seriously,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), ranking Democrat on the subcommittee. “We heard hearings last Congress that touched on VA Central Office [and other facilities], and in each of those cases the VA investigated wrongdoing, rooted it out, and disciplined employees in accordance with the law. It is a misrepresentation to say that VA does not have legal authority under Title 5 to hold employees accountable.”
She added, “I have no problem with VA holding employees accountable, and I implore VA to do so. … What I’m not going to be standing for is an excuse for my colleagues across the aisle to illegally work with the Trump administration to abuse their power, subversion of due process rights afforded to federal employees, and the deconstruction of services to veterans that they have earned and they deserve.”
Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the full House VA Committee, accused the legislation of being a key step in Republican’s long-term plan to push more and more veterans out of the direct VA care system.
“[This bill is a] codification of Trump’s various executive orders to give his political appointees sharpened tools to exact swift justice on VA employees for perceived disloyalty or insubordination,” he said. “They want to make it as easy as possible to fire employees without cause.”
Democrats also claimed that, if accountability was the administration’s goal, the president would not have summarily fired 17 agency inspectors general shortly into his term, including the VA IG, Michael Missal. Missal was confirmed to the post during Trump’s first term and his work directing investigations into deficiencies at the department has been praised by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Missal, along with seven of the other fired IGs, has filed a lawsuit to be reinstated, asserting that Trump broke the law by not giving Congress 30 days’ notice or providing a concrete explanation for the dismissals.
