A whistleblower office at the Department of Veterans Affairs once again faces the possibility of a significant restructuring, only a few years into its existence.
Members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations are revisiting legislation that would eliminate the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection’s statutory authority to investigate whistleblower retaliation complaints.
A discussion draft of the bill, if passed, would cease all of OAWP’s ongoing investigations of whistleblower retaliation. Instead, the Office of Special Counsel would take on this workload.
VA employees can already file whistleblower retaliation complaints with OSC.
The discussion draft of the bill would also give OAWP its own general counsel, which oversight and whistleblower advocacy groups claim would help the office maintain more independence from the rest of the agency.
OAWP today relies on VA’s general counsel to provide legal advice, but some members of the committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations said that arrangement creates a probable conflict of interest, because of the general counsel’s role of defending the VA from whistleblower allegations.
The bill would clarify some whistleblower protections, such as ensuring that senior agency employees that blow the whistle are protected. It would also clarify the scope of current training for VA employees regarding the rights and responsibilities of whistleblowers.
The...
Melania Trump on Thursday (April 9) issued an unexpected public statement denying any connection to Jeffrey Epstein, pushing back against what she described as long-running false claims circulatin...