VA watchdog to challenge chief ’s travel
WASHINGTON – Department of Veterans Affairs investigators are poised to claim Secretary David Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets and used taxpayers’ money to pay his wife’s airfare during a European trip last summer — findings Shulkin’s lawyers are blasting as ques- tionable and unfair.
The report by the VA inspector general is scheduled to be released sometime this week, but some of its key findings can be inferred from a point-by-point rebuttal drafted by Shulkin’s lawyers and obtained by USA TODAY.
The report is expected to criticize Shulkin for taking an unnecessary trip, using taxpayers’ money for tourist activities and using a VA employee to ar- range his leisure time.
Shulkin’s lawyers criticize the report as unfair and inaccurate and suggest the inspector general’s investigation was biased against Shulkin from the start.
“The draft report ignores critical facts, presenting a one-sided version of events that casts aside evidence contradicting your chosen narrative,” wrote
the lawyers, Justin Shur, Eric Nitz and Emily Damrau.
Shulkin took the 10-day trip with his wife and staff to meet with health care officials in Denmark and attend a summit on veterans’ issues in London.
VA Inspector General Michael Missal began investigating the excursion in October after The Washington Post reported that the couple spent nearly half of the trip sightseeing. Among the findings, as inferred from Shulkin’s lawyers’ rebuttal:
That the trip may not have qualified as “essential travel” under a costsaving directive Shulkin himself gave VA leaders just weeks before his trip.
His wife’s airfare should not have been paid for by the VA or approved by ethics officials at the agency, and the leisure time during the trip was a questionable use of taxpayer dollars.
The couple’s acceptance of tickets to the Wimbledon tennis tournament may have been improper, and the person who provided the tickets was not a personal friend, as ethics officials who approved the gift had been told.
Shulkin improperly directed VA staff on official time to arrange personal sightseeing.
In the eight-page rebuttal, Shulkin’s lawyers maintain the report “improperly applies the relevant regulations, at times mischaracterizing them.”
They say the trip was “immensely valuable” to learning about and addressing problems facing veterans. They said it is “beyond obvious” that the trip qualified as “essential travel,” and any suggestion otherwise demonstrates a “fundamental lack of understanding of the Secretary’s work and the VA’s mission.”
They said flying home after the meetings July 14 in Denmark then flying back for the summit July 18 in London would have cost taxpayers more than staying in Europe the four days. The sightseeing was paid for by Shulkin and his wife, Merle Bari. And they said his wife’s coach airfare to Europe was approved as a taxpayer expense by VA ethics officials, and he had nothing to do with securing that approval.
The Wimbledon tickets were provided by Victoria Gosling, a strategic adviser to the Invictus Games UK — a sports event for wounded warriors — whom Shulkin and his wife had met at events in the United States. She had no official business before the VA and offered the tickets only after her sister couldn’t attend, the lawyers said.
In an affidavit, Gosling said she considers Shulkin and his wife friends, but she said that during an interview with investigators she forgot Bari’s name. “The investigators unexpectedly called me on my mobile phone whilst I was driving on a very busy highway,” Gosling wrote, adding that she felt investigators tried to twist her words and put words in her mouth. “Given the nature of the interview, I felt flustered.”
Shulkin is the only holdover from the Obama administration in President Trump’s Cabinet. He was sworn in one year ago Wednesday. He used to be undersecretary for health at the VA.
In his tenure, Shulkin has directed increased transparency, including a new website revealing wait times for VA care and quality comparisons to the private sector. He also has sought to increase accountability, swiftly removing hospital directors when problems with care have been revealed, including in Manchester, N.H., and Washington.