The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee has voted to subpoena the Department of Veterans Affairs over its failure to address allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct within VA’s Office of Resolution Management, Diversity, and Inclusion (ORMDI).
“Unlike VA, when these brave whistleblowers came to my office to alert us of disturbing allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct at VA, I took them seriously,” HVAC Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill) said in a statement. “It’s unacceptable and abhorrent that the Department ignored these allegations.”
The HVAC voted 22-1 on Jan. 11 to subpoena VA for the first time since 2016. In September, a VA ORMDI whistleblower used the committee’s whistleblower portal to submit allegations of ORMDI senior leadership committing sexual harassment and misconduct, according to the statement.
A second VA ORMDI whistleblower then informed the committee that they received numerous unwanted sexually suggestive and aggressive messages from multiple VA employees, including their senior manager. When the whistleblower did not agree to consensual sex with their senior manager, the senior manager’s attitude towards the whistleblower allegedly changed and the senior manager began bad-mouthing the whistleblower to ORMDI leadership, according to the committee’s statement. Bost then made public the committee’s investigation into the VA ORMDI office and after seven weeks of no action, on the same day the investigation was made public, VA acted against the alleged individuals.
The following day, the Biden administration’s assistant secretary responsible for ORMDI announced that she would be leaving VA. Since the investigation was made public, several other whistleblowers have approached the committee, submitting allegations about ORMDI and its leadership. Late last month, while under investigation and a main suspect in the allegations, VA’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for ORMDI, announced his retirement.
Bost added that it took 45 days, and a personal call to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, “for the Department to treat these allegations with the urgency that they should’ve been treated with from day one.”
VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said in a statement that VA has already provided the committee with 1,175 pages of documents, including 27 transcribed interviews from its internal investigation.
“VA does not tolerate sexual harassment,” he said. “We are treating these allegations with the utmost seriousness, have moved to aggressively investigate them, and will take swift and appropriate action.”
By the end of January, Hayes said VA would provide the committee with a final report of its internal investigation into the allegations; transcripts of sworn witness interviews taken by VA in its internal investigation; several hundred thousand documents collected by VA in its internal investigations; and provide regular briefings to the on the progress of the investigations.
To read more about the committee’s investigation into VA’s ORMDI office, click here.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.