Watchdog faults VA chief over handling of sexual assault report

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronted with a sexual assault allegation at a veterans hospital, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie repeatedly sought to discredit the congressional aide who made the complaint and his staff worked to spread negative information about her while ignoring known problems of harassment at the facility, according to an investigative report released Thursday.

The 47-page report by the VA’s internal watchdog paints a portrait of a department led by senior officials who were indifferent, if not hostile, to the issues at the department’s flagship medical center in the nation’s capital. It found that Wilkie acted unprofessionally if not unethically, in the case of Navy veteran Andrea Goldstein, a policy adviser to Democratic Rep. Mark Takano of California, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Associated Press policy is not to name victims or possible victims of sexual assault. Goldstein agreed to be publicly identified.
Wilkie and other senior officials declined to fully cooperate with the investigation. For that reason, VA Inspector General Michael Missal said he could not conclude whether Wilkie had acted illegally, allegedly by personally digging into the woman’s past and working with a Republican congressman to dismiss her as a repeat complainer.

Wilkie said the allegations are false. “After nearly a year of investigation, interviews with 65 people and analysis of nearly 1.5 million documents, VA’s inspector general cannot substantiate that I sought to investigate or asked others to investigate the veteran,” Wilkie said.

Takano called on Wilkie to resign.

Goldstein said the report confirmed that Wilkie’s response “was not to take ownership and ensure accountability but to investigate me and attempt to impugn my character.” She said she hopes Wilkie’s successor “will center and prioritize eradicating sexual violence at VA, and actively work to gain women veterans’ trust.”

The findings are a black eye for a department that has seen improved performance and veterans’ satisfaction with VA care under the Trump administration. But there also has been persistent turmoil, ethical challenges and disarray in its leadership.

The department has received particular criticism for an unwelcoming culture for female veterans, the military’s fastest-growing subgroup.

“The response of Secretary Wilkie and senior VA officials to the veteran’s complaint of sexual assault was troubling,” Missal said in a statement. “Scrutinizing the veteran’s background is contrary to VA’s stated goal to serve veterans with respect.

Every VA employee should commit to making VA facilities safe and welcoming places where such complaints are met with the highest standards of professionalism and responsiveness.”

According to the report, Wilkie showed undue defensiveness after learning of the complaint in late 2019. He referred the matter as requested to the inspector general but spent parts of leadership meetings dismissing her concerns as politically motivated, the report said.

It said former VA Deputy Secretary Jim Byrne testified that Wilkie indicated to staff he had gathered negative information from the Pentagon and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, who knew Goldstein when she was in the Navy, and that she had made frivolous complaints previously.

The inspector general could not conclusively confirm that Wilkie improperly investigated her, in part because of his refusal to fully cooperate. But the report said they had “substantial sworn testimony” from staff of Wilkie repeatedly belittling her. Crenshaw denies discussing the case with Wilkie.

At another point, Curt Cashour, a VA deputy assistant secretary working in the press shop, urged a news organization to dig into Goldstein’s background, according to the report. Cashour denied that he was directed to do this, but told investigators the tip was based on communications he had with Wilkie about Goldstein.

“The tone set by Secretary Wilkie appears to have influenced aspects of the initial VA police investigation and the conduct of other VA employees,” the report said.

Wilkie became VA secretary in 2018 after President Donald Trump fired David Shulkin amid ethics troubles and inner rebellion at the department over Shulkin’s leadership.

Trump repeatedly points to an improved VA as one of his top accomplishments. “For years, you’d always see vets and how badly treated they were,” he told a Georgia rally last week. “You don’t see that anymore.”

President-elect Joe Biden is pledging to rebuild trust in the VA and better agency relations with Congress, including boosting medical services for women veterans. On Thursday, Biden said he will nominate Denis McDonough, who served as President Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, to be VA secretary.

Goldstein filed her assault complaint in September 2019 after visiting the VA medical center for an appointment. She has told media outlets that she was buying a snack in the hospital cafeteria when an unidentified man slammed his body into hers and propositioned her. Her case was ultimately closed by the inspector general’s office and Justice Department this year due to lack of enough evidence.

The VA medical center in Washington has had a history of complaints from women about harassment that were widely known by senior officials, according to the report.

William Hudson, the VA’s acting general counsel, testified that after the complaint, he sought to improve the Washington facility but got no support. The report said senior officials showed “an unusual level of engagement” in the police investigation, with one officer reporting that a VA official had remarked that she “made a complaint similar to this before” and seemingly encouraged background checks on her.

If the VA had taken the complaint seriously and reviewed VA police reports, it would have learned that a female VA employee complained in May 2019 about being repeatedly sexually harassed by the same man, as well as information about the contractor’s criminal history. VA officials did not examine the information, the report said.

The VA says it has strived to improve some services for women, though advocates say the change has not come fast enough. A study released by the VA last year found 1 in 4 female veterans using VA health care reported inappropriate comments by male veterans on VA grounds.

Currently, about 10% of the nation’s veterans are women. In the U.S. military forces, about 17% of those enlisted are women, compared with about 2% in 1973.