White House: Trump has confidence in VA Secretary David Shulkin but investigation ongoing
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The Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin’s chief of staff doctored an email and made false statements so the secretary’s wife could use taxpayer money for her 10-day trip to Europe, an investigation found.
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WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Tuesday said she had “no reason to believe” President Trump has lost confidence in Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin following a report he misused taxpayer dollars, but she said an investigation is ongoing, leaving Shulkin’s fate in limbo.
“There’s a 97-page inspector general report, and until there’s a secondary review that takes place and until that’s completed, I can’t comment any further,” said said.Â
It was the first public statement of any kind from the White House on the report since its release last Wednesday. Â
Investigators from the VA inspector general’s office found Shulkin wrongly accepted Wimbledon tickets and airfare for his wife at taxpayers’ expense during a trip to London and Denmark last July. They found the couple spent more than half the trip sightseeing and misused a VA staffer to plan the activities. In addition, investigators determined his chief of staff falsified an email to secure clearance for his wife to accompany him. Â
In the days following the report’s release, Shulkin first attacked the investigation as unfair, then suggested his chief of staff’s email was hacked, and, in what looked like another deflection of responsibility, he pointed to a group of aides targeting and undermining him.
He later expressed remorse and agreed to repay the cost of the tennis tickets and his wife’s airfare. His chief of staff Vivieca Wright Simpson retired.
Shulkin issued an apology to employees Friday for the way he handled the findings.
“This week there have been some unfortunate distractions from our core mission of serving Veterans. For that I take responsibility and recognize that this could have been handled better; I owe you an apology for that,†he wrote in an email. “Going forward, it is most important that we all remain focused on the great work that you are doing and our efforts to do even better in the future.â€
But the absence of full-throated support from the White House has created questions about whether Trump will keep him in place.Â
Shulkin has been reporting to work, but the White House on Friday installed a new chief of staff to replace Wright Simpson — a move normally left to a Cabinet secretary’s discretion. And his communications staff was reporting last week to the White House rather than to him.
The situation has created confusion in the agency, on Capitol Hill and at outside veterans’ organizations, who scrambled to issue statements of support for Shulkin in recent days.
The latest, from Paralyzed Veterans of America executive director Carl Blake, came Tuesday and urged the White House to end the “back-biting” and allow Shulkin “the opportunity to make the situation right.”Â
“In order to do so,” he wrote, “the VA must work together with stakeholders and Congress and turn the focus back to improving the quality and delivery of health care and benefits at VA, not political ambitions and backbiting.”
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