Travel message doctored for wife’s free Europe flight
The chief of staff to Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin altered an official e-mail so taxpayers would pick up the tab for the secretary’s wife’s trip to Europe — but the Justice Department declined to bring charges, according to a report Wednesday.
Vivieca Wright Simpson, the VA’s No. 3 official, doctored language in an e-mail from another aide who was planning the trip to make it look like Shulkin was getting an award from the Danish government, investigators found.
That was an attempt to justify paying for Shulkin’s wife’s travel — including $4,300 for her plane tickets — Inspector General Michael Missal wrote in a stinging report.
Simpson pushed for the award, thinking it would justify for taxpayers to pick up the travel tab of the secretary’s wife, Merle Bari, who joined her hubby of the luxury, 10-day trip last summer, the IG said.
In e-mails to James Gough, the aide who was coordinating with European officials, Simpson pushed to lock in the award.
Gough said he was trying to arrange that but didn’t have it nailed down.
“We’re working on having a dinner at the US Ambassador’s Residence in honor of SECVA [the secretary], but that has not been confirmed by US Embassy Copenhagen yet,” Gough wrote.
The IG said that Simpson then changed the e-mail to read, “We’re having a special recognition dinner at the US Ambassador’s Residence in the honor of SECVA.”
In the end, the Danes gave no award to the VA secretary.
The IG referred the matter to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, but it declined to press charges against Simpson.
Simpson told investigators she did not recall whether she altered the e-mail, Missal wrote. In a second interview, she did not directly respond to questions about the altered e-mail, repeatedly saying, “I responded appropriately to the email.”
The IG’s report also said Shulkin and his staff misled the agency’s ethics officials and the public about details of the trip to Denmark and England, which included pricey tickets to Wimbledon tennis matches, tours of Westminster Abbey and Denmark’s Rosenborg Castle as well as a cruise along the Thames.
Shulkin improperly accepted the tickets to Wimbledon as a gift, the IG concluded. “Although the [inspector general’s office] cannot determine the value VA gained from the secretary and his delegation’s three and a half days of meetings in Copenhagen and London at a cost of at least $122,334, the investigation revealed serious derelictions by VA personnel,” Missal wrote.
He called on Shulkin and Simpson to reimburse the government for unauthorized costs.
Shulkin is one of five current and former Trump administration Cabinet members being probed by inspectors general over travel expenses, an issue that forced the resignation of Health Secretary Tom Price last year, The Washington Post reported.
Shulkin accused Missal of playing politics, saying the report “reeks of an agenda.”
“It is outrageous that you would portray my wife and me as attempting to take advantage of the government,” he wrote in a response.
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), an Army veteran and a retired Marine Corps officer who is on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called on Shulkin to resign.
“It’s exactly corruption and abuses like this that doesn’t help our veterans,” Coffman tweeted.