Congress, and our nation, have no more solemn duty than the one we owe to our veterans. They’ve given their blood, their sweat and their tears for our great country. They’ve fought on battlefields only to come home and face new battles: difficulty accessing health care, challenges in transitioning to civilian life, a lot of them face homelessness, PTSD, and of course, we hear all the time in our various congressional offices about bureaucratic red tape at the VA.
I’ve long engaged in VA oversight. The VA’s fought my efforts tooth and nail. I won’t tire. Our veterans deserve nothing less than making sure the VA delivers in an efficient way, and particularly when we find things to be wrong there.
It’s because of my oversight that I’ve placed a hold on the nomination of Tanya Bradsher to be Deputy Secretary at the VA.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination as well. And I’m here to tell you why.
Records in my possession, as well as statements from VA whistleblowers, show that Ms. Bradsher has failed to secure our veterans’ private and sensitive protected health information, personally identifiable information and whistleblower information.
Information also shows that she played a key role in the VA’s obstruction of my investigation of VA corruption.
My Democratic colleagues rushed Ms. Bradsher’s nomination through the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee without even investigating the allegations that I brought to the committee’s attention.
Let’s start with the VA Integrated Enterprise Workflow Solution, otherwise known by the acronym VIEWS.
Records show that this system exposes sensitive medical, health and personal information of many veterans, as well as whistleblower names and information.
At least 1,900 VA employees have access to this system, but without the need to view this sensitive information. Now, Ms. Bradsher has direct responsibility for that system as the VA's Chief of Staff, her present position.
Emails and screenshots from VIEWS were supplied to me by whistleblowers. And most of my colleagues know I get a lot of information from whistleblowers. These emails show these whistleblowers notified Ms. Bradsher’s deputy last July, a whole year ago, about these issues.
One of these whistleblowers told Ms. Bradsher’s office she’d been harassed and that she feared for her safety.
To this day, Ms. Bradsher hasn’t followed up or instructed anyone else to follow up with these whistleblowers to make sure that their concerns were addressed.
Despite questions for the record asked by Ranking Member Moran and Senator Blackburn, Ms. Bradsher has offered no explanation for why the specific personal information brought to her office’s attention wasn’t secured as it should be secured.
Instead, she pointed to a few feeble actions she says were taken to address future correspondence, such as training on private data.
This is unacceptable for a nominee who will be in charge of the VA’s effort to modernize our veterans’ sensitive electronic health records, if she is confirmed.
Ms. Bradsher was in the Chief of Staff position sixteen months before whistleblowers notified her of this serious potential data breach, and now for a year after.
That kind of inaction and negligence is remarkable even for the VA.
These flaws provide a back door enabling whistleblower retaliation and potential identity fraud, and they must be fixed now, not ignored.
The matter was serious enough that the Office of Special Counsel last August found a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” in potential violation of federal privacy laws, and ordered the Secretary to complete an investigation within 60 days. The VA still hasn’t completed its investigation.
The Office of Special Counsel advised my office that the most serious allegation related to data privacy has already been confirmed. VA’s report to the Office of Special Counsel should be issued by August 1, just days away.
We’d fail our nation’s veterans and neglect our constitutional duty to offer informed advice and consent on this nomination if we allowed the nomination to go forward before we have those answers.
Also, how can any member have an informed choice on this nominee if the VA Committee didn’t even bother to interview the people with relevant information on the matter?
Instead, rather than investigate, the majority actually circulated a misleading memo to committee members that was written by the VA.
It also slandered my office by claiming my staff had these allegations but intentionally hid them from the committee until the day before Ms. Bradsher’s hearing.
This is not true.
My staff provided the information to the committee right away.
The VA ought to quickly get with the program.
And that brings me to my second point of opposition to this nominee. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that Ms. Bradsher played a key role in the VA’s failed response to my investigation into VA corruption, which the VA has stonewalled for over two years.
We shouldn’t continue to reward the VA and a nominee for their inattention to congressional oversight.
We shouldn’t confirm a nominee who represents business as usual and continued inattention to Congress and our veterans.
I urge my colleagues to vote against this nomination until we get the answers the American people deserve.
