Inside The VA: Whistleblowing and Retaliation;1999

http://veteranwhistleblower.blog.com/?p=203
On March 24, 2009 Marine Veteran and VA Whistleblower Oliver Mitchell filed an OIG complaint against
the Nations largest VA Medical Center located in Los Angeles, California. Mitchells complaint alleged
manipulation of data, patient wait times, and the destruction of documents among other things. Mitchells
complaint also led to the discovery of a national crisis facing the Veterans Healthcare Network.
The VA Scandal of 2014 is the nations longest running scandal in the history of America. Almost daily the
citizens of America learn of the mayhem inside the halls of Americas VA hospitals. All but one story has
been nationally told, and thats the story of Mitchell and the Los Angeles VA.
Mitchell says its just not my story, this is a story about all of America. Veterans are much a part of society
as any other American citizen. We just havent heard of the issues surrounding the L.A. VA yet.
Theres a special connection between Mitchell, the VA and our Nations Congress in this story.
Long before the Phoenix fiasco, Mitchell had warned VA officials, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and Congress of the employee abuses, including
the manipulation of Electronic Waiting List to hide the GLAs raging ten year backlog.
Darin Selnick, the former Special Assistant to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and current staff member
of Concerned Veterans of America stated L.A. is one of the trouble spots in the V.A. System.
Notably, the GLA Healthcare System is the largest healthcare system within the Veterans Affairs.
Yet the Phoenix explosion has dwarfed the long standing and grave life altering misconduct that
purportedly operates within the VAs GLA system.
Mitchell says I blew the whistle because of the VAs manipulative scheduling practices that were aimed at
hiding backlogs that were killing veterans.
Mitchell who had discovered critical access to care issues stemmed from a Systems Redesign meeting in
2008. In 2008, management officials were discussing ways to purge the backlog while admitting
veterans were dying due to limited access to care.
Mitchell, who captured the meeting on audio, had informed higher officials of the misbehavior.
They were hell bent on destroying their backlog, Mitchell says.
So on March 24, 2009 Mitchell contacted the VA OIG to file a complaint. However, based on the OIGs
and OSCs lack of focus and priority to the matter, it seemed as if no one cared. When those agency's and
other departments failed to respond or investigate, I reached out to Congress, Mitchell says.
For a future developing story we discovered another alarming trend.

On February 7, 2015, we published Inside The VA: The Story Unfolds. In that story we had discovered
there was a trend also.
We reported:
Based on our research there appears to be an alarming trend among federal government whistleblowers.
1.

Blow the whistle.

2. Report your allegations to Congress.

3. Lose your job.
4. The government destroys your life and makes you a Targeted Individual (TI).
Whistleblowers frequently face reprisal for telling the truth. Sometimes at the hands of the organization
or group which they have accused, sometimes from related organizations, and occasionally under the law.
Many whistleblowers are singled out for retaliation. Our research determined that many whistleblowers
are politically targeted soon after contacting Congress.
Mitchell says I have been most definitely singled out and the retaliation seemed to of escalated once I
wrote the Veterans Affairs Committee.
In The Story Unfolds, within a section titled The Report of Investigation, Part 2 Mitchell stated:
These folders contain the complaints and evidence I submitted over the years that would substantiate my
claims of racism, discrimination and whistleblowing. This is what the VA is trying their best to recover.
They just dont want you to know I suffered a great deal because of telling the truth.

Mitchell continued saying "These folders contain the allegations, complaints, and evidence to substantiate
the deaths of many veterans. These are the same folders and documents I submitted to Congress in 2011,
he said."
Here's where we found another alarming trend.

On March 11, 1999, the Subcommittee Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Veterans Affairs
met to discuss "Whistleblowing and Retaliation in the Department of Veterans Affairs."
At 9:40 am the then Chairman Everett stated:
This Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee meeting is to examine whistleblowing and retaliation of
the Department of Veterans employees - in the department - by the Department of Veterans Affairs and
how they handle that.
This subject has been a matter of bipartisan congressional concern for a long long time. In 1992, the then
Chairman John Conyers of the Committee on Government Operations issued a report - that is Report 1021062 - with a section entitled "The DVA, Department of Veterans Affairs, discourages the reporting of
poor quality care by harassing whistleblowers or firing them."
The report went on to say that according to Tom Devine, the Director of the Government Accountability
Project, the Department of Veterans Affairs is a leader on the merit system anti honor for one simple
reason: free speech repression has been a way of life at this agency.
Free speech repression huh?
Simply put, the VA will destroy anyone who gets in its way. Speak out against the "status quo" and they
will destroy you, anyway possible, Mitchell says.
Chairman Everett continued saying:
The Subcommittees investigation of the treatment of whistleblowers by the DVA confirms this
characterization- honest employees who have had their jobs eliminated and their lives destroyed because
they attempted to expose poor patient care.
Based on our research and the stories we've published, we would say Mitchell has most definitely had his
life destroyed by the repressive VA.
Mitchell has clearly demonstrated medical targeting, financial targeting, political suppression and a host
of basic civil rights protections.
Chairman Everett continued his opening statement saying:
Whistleblowing by its nature usually involves rank and file or middle level employees, those who are at
least able to protect themselves against retaliation. Whistleblowers who expose fraud, waste and abuse in
government and employee rights to make claims are supposed to be legally protected by a number of
federal laws, including the Whistleblower Protection Act.
Its ironic that Congress were evaluating the VA's long and systemic blind eye to whistleblowers. It was
more than interesting to hear Chairman Everett say "whistleblowers should be legally protected."

In Mitchell's story of The Story Unfolds, we highlighted how VA Officials and Congress have left Mitchell
legally exposed to further retaliation.
In a conversation Mitchell had with an anonymous VA Official, Mitchell recounts how he has been
exposed without protections and subjected to numerous retaliatory acts.
We don't want to give away too much for our future story but we discovered testimony in the 1999 report
that highly suggest the VA is so conspiratorial that the VA will do anything to hide the truth.
If you've been following Mitchell's story you know by now the nation's largest VA medical center has
subjected Mitchell to some extraordinary acts of retaliation for whistleblowing.
On March 11, 1999, Dr. Earl Dick testified about his experience while blowing the whistle.
Mr. Chairman, my name is Earl Dick. I'am a physician at the Harry S. Trouman Memorial Veterans
Hospital in Columbia, MO.
I'am here to speak to the way the VA deals with people such as me. As tragic and illegal as the retaliation
and reprisal has been to my career, it is more horrifying to me to recognize that the VA has
institutionalized retaliation and reprisal as a way of doing business.
In my case, it was the result of my not participating in the cover-up of patient murders in 1992... Some 11
to 40 patients had been murdered.
The agency position has been and continues to be that there is no evidence of murder.
I have learned that when detrimental information became public the VA has retaliated against me... I was
thus a traitor to the system, not a team player for not controlling other professionals and not participating
in the cover-up.
In the Spring of 1995, I made disclosures to the OIG of the VA of the events that happened in 1992.
In August 1995, I made further disclosures by providing a multi ring binder... That binder
contained extensive documentation... concerning the murders and cover-up.
Based on my personal experience, I would urge this committee to discuss reform to end the VA culture of
reprisal, retaliation, and cover-up...
Once a congressional committee accepts and uses information from a whistleblower, that person should
be protected from reprisal in any form.
Chairman Everett, there is a price for telling the truth.
I believe that the cover-up of these patient murders not only prevented criminal prosecution but has
prevented the hospital and the VA from acknowledging and accepting the responsibility of what occurred.

Folks, this is absolutely amazing. If you replaced Dr. Dick with Marine Veteran and VA Whistleblower
Mitchell you would swear it was Mkitchell speaking and we were in 1999 again.
Mitchell's allegations surely fit the agency wide pattern of whistleblower retaliation.
Mitchell filed a complaint, compiled evidence of patient deaths (murders), notified the OIG, OSC and
Congress. Congress accepts Mitchell's information but Mitchell was subsequently dismissed from
employment, then Mitchell is subjected to a long and lengthy political attack.
There is a pattern here America.
Truth telling and whistleblowing is deadly even when you're trying to save lives and taxpayer dollars.
Within the report we noticed that Democrat Corrine Brown, Florida, Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations also weighed in on the subject of retaliation.
Congresswoman Brown stated:
We need to protect employees who uncover threats to the safety of our veterans r crimes or bad
management. Good administrators know it is better to listen to whistleblowers who are mistaken than to
silence the ones who are right.
I'am interested in today's testimony. It is important that this hearing stay focused on the issues of whether
the whistleblowers have been punished rather than on the substance of what they have revealed... It does
not matter whether the whistleblowers are right or wrong. They cannot be punished for speaking out.
Speaking of punishment. On February 25, 2011, Mitchell wrote to VA General Counsel concerning his
perceived punishment.
See email here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/230543827/PUNISH-ME
Congresswoman Brown continued her statement saying:
We have two ways to measure how well whistleblower protection works. One is whatever information we
can get from the Office of Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel... The other is to listen to
whistleblowers who feel the system has failed them.
Mitchell says "No one listened. The OIG failed to due a proper investigation and thus failed to properly
inform congress and the OSC relied on the response from the OIG so they never questioned anything."
See OSC letter here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/233008708/OSC-Open-Letter-July-3-2014
See OIG letter here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/229324076/VA-OIG

We have a system where basically everybody understands the rules, the rules being if you tell the truth,
you are punished, and if you take part in a thing as heinous as murder that you are actually recognized as
a loyal, valuable employee and you are rewarded.
Dr. Edward H. Adelstein - VA Medical Center
Mitchell has suffered a great deal and many wonder if congress will ever intervene on Mitchell's behalf.
Mitchell says "When I was forced out the agency I moved on with my life. Never in a million years would I
ever suspect agency officials would continue a vendetta of retaliation against me long after I left."
Mitchell is now homeless after having left his home in Alabama due to retaliation within the community.
Join us for the conclusion of The Vexatious Litigant and in case you missed them catch up on the
Vexatious Litigant series here:
Inside The VA: The Vexatious Litigant, Part 4 http://veteranwhistleblower.blog.com/?p=201
Inside The VA: The Vexatious Litigant, Part 3 http://veteranwhistleblower.blog.com/?p=198
Inside The VA: The Vexatious Litigant, Part 2 http://veteranwhistleblower.blog.com/?p=196
Inside The VA: The Vexatious Litigant, Part 1 http://veteranwhistleblower.blog.com/?p=126
Also, coming soon:
Inside The VA: The Outpatient Scandal
Inside The VA: The Missing Report
This has been another post from A Veteran Whistleblower: Exposing The Truth.
Copyright. Oliver B. Mitchell III, 2014-2015. All rights reserved. This article may be re-posted but
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