Blumenthal: Time to bring in DOJ
By Keith Laing - 05/25/14 11:54 AM
EDT
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Sunday that the Department of Justice should investigate
alleged mistreatment of military veterans that has engulfed the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The VA has been accused of
allowing a backlog of cases to build up for years in some cases and attempting
to cover up the problems by falsifying records.
Blumenthal said Sunday during an
appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that the DOJ should
be brought in to investigate the complaints because they involve potentially
criminal acts.
“I believe that the Department of
Justice has to be involved,” Blumenthal said. “I urged [VA] Secretary [Eric] Shinseki privately and in fact publicly to
request and involve the Department of Justice.”
Blumenthal said the VA is not
equipped to handle the investigation by itself.
“We’re talking now about…credible
and specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing across the country in more than 30
places,” he said. “The inspector general of the Veterans Administration has only 165 investigators.
“Plainly more resources are
needed,” Blumenthal continued. “Only the Department of Justice and the FBI has the resources, the expertise
and the authority to do a prompt and effective criminal investigation of the
secret waiting list, potential destruction of documents, falsification of
records. In effect, cooking the books and covering up that may have occurred.”
Blumenthal added that it was
important not to presume officials at the VA were guilty.
He added that allowing the Justice
Department to conduct the investigation would help the veterans’ agency restore
its reputation.
“These are allegations, but
there’s evidence to support them,” Blumenthal said. “We’re not rushing to
judgment, but the department of justice can convene a grand jury if
necessary. The IG cannot. And [the
Justice Department] reflects and presents an outside independent authority that
can offer accountability and the perception of accountability. It would restore
trust and confidence on the part of veterans.”
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who was
appearing on the show with Blumenthal, agreed that the problems at the VA were
troubling.
“We’ve got a…basic failure of the
institution,” Thune said. “It hasn’t been associated with funding because we
know that funding has been increased by 60 percent over the past five years to
the VA."
Thune said the VA needed “a
top-to-bottom review by the inspector general, system wide, that points out and
gives us an idea about how to proceed.
“I think one of the things is
we’ve got to have more accountability, more transparency about not only waiting
lists, but outcomes at the VA,” the South
Dakota lawmaker said. “We also have to come up with a
better model of delivering care to our veterans so that they don’t have these
waits. This is a real tragedy, these are
people with whom we have sacred trust, and that’s been betrayed. We need to
make sure that it’s fixed.”
Thune said the announcement
Saturday that the VA would allow patients to go to non-VA facilities more often
to help ease the backlog was a “welcome change.”
But he said the Obama administration has otherwise been
too slow to respond to the VA scandal.
“I think the president just waited
way too long to get into this,” Thune said. “That was the issue that many of us
were raising. You had reports of up to 40 people who died on waiting lists. You
had these reports of secret lists and falsifying reports and all those sorts of
things and it took there weeks for the president to act.”
Richard Blumenthal
Richard
Blumenthal is a U.S. Senate
senator, and was the U.S.
attorney for Connecticut
at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Note: Robert Raben was
the assistant attorney general at the U.S.
Department of Justice, and a director at the American Constitution Society.
Walter E.
Dellinger III was the acting solicitor general for the U.S. Department of Justice, and is a board of adviser’s member for
the American Constitution Society.
Christine A.
Varney was the assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice, and is a director at the American Constitution Society.
Janet
Reno was the attorney general at the U.S.
Department of Justice, and is a board of adviser’s member for the American Constitution Society.
Eric H. Holder Jr.
is the attorney general at the U.S.
Department of Justice for the Barack
Obama administration, and was a board member for the American Constitution Society.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the American Constitution Society, and the Atlantic Council of the United
States (think tank).
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations.
Chuck
Hagel was the chairman for the Atlantic
Council of the United States
(think tank), the deputy administrator for the U.S. Veterans Administration, and is the secretary at the U.S. Department of Defense for the Barack Obama administration.
Togo
D. West Jr. is a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States
(think tank), was the secretary for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the general counsel for
the U.S. Department of Defense.
Eric
K. Shinseki was a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States
(think tank), and is the secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for the Barack Obama administration.
William H. Webster
is an honorary director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States
(think tank), and was a director at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Joseph W. Ralston
is a director at the Atlantic Council of
the United States
(think tank), and was a military analyst for the CBS News.
Bob
Schieffer is the chief Washington
correspondent for the CBS News, the anchor
& moderator for Face the Nation,
and a member of the Burning Tree Club.
Linda Douglass was
a correspondent for the CBS News,
and a communications director, Office of Health Reform Barack Obama administration.
Edward R. Murrow
was a correspondent for the CBS News,
and a member of the Burning Tree Club.
John
A. Boehner is a member of the Burning
Tree Club, and the House leader for the Republican establishment.
John
W. Warner is a member of the Burning
Tree Club, and an honorary director at the Atlantic Council of the United
States (think tank).
W. DeVier Pierson
is a director at the Atlantic Council of
the United States
(think tank), and a member of the Burning
Tree Club.
Stanley
Ebner is a member of the Burning
Tree Club, and a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States
(think tank).
Jack
Valenti was a member of the Burning
Tree Club, and a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Aspen Institute (think
tank), and the Committee for
Economic Development.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
James S.
Crown is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a member
of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Lester Crown
was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and is a
member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
William
M. Daley is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, a contributor for the CBS
News, and was the chief of staff for the Barack Obama administration.
Newton
N. Minow is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, a senior counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP,
and was a director at CBS.
R.
Eden Martin is the president of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP.
Michelle
Obama was a lawyer at Sidley Austin
LLP.
Barack
Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin
LLP, and Obamacare is his signature
policy initiative.
CGI Group Inc.
was the Obamacare contractor that
developed Healthcare.gov web site.
Donna
S. Morea was the EVP for the CGI
Group Inc., and a trustee at the Committee
for Economic Development.
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