EXCLUSIVE: A right-wing research group claims the Department of Veterans Affairs under the Biden administration paid more than $130 million to 1,700 people laid off under a Trump-era law that allows for easier accountability for employees. federal.
Through Freedom of Information Act filings, the America First Policy Institute will soon publish the results of its research.
Their investigation also found that the VA reinstated more than 100 terminated employees who were fired for indiscretions ranging from negligence to sleeping on the job. Dozens of firings accounted for in documents reviewed by Fox News Digital did not include other specific crimes.
Following the passage of the 2017 law, the VA allegedly failed to negotiate with its public employee union and was ordered to attend arbitration. Because of this, according to a source familiar, the VA could have been required to rehire all previously fired employees, including those fired for “serious misconduct” such as patient abuse or harassment.
The agency finally reached an agreement with the union in 2023 and so far only 106 of the 1,700 employees who were offered financial compensation have been reinstated.
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The Department of Veterans Affairs building in Washington, DC, on July 22, 2019. (ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Images)
The investigation found that of the more than 4,000 employees laid off, more than 1,700 received back pay or compensation.
At that rate, back wages for the entire group of former employees would amount to $300 million, according to a statement from the AFPI.
Former Trump VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said the current administration has “let down American veterans and taxpayers” with such actions.
“Those fired for mistreating American veterans should not even be allowed near the VA, much less reinstated,” said Wilkie, now a fellow at AFPI’s Center for American Security.
“Rather than litigate these baseless complaints or work with Congress to strengthen the Accountability Act, the Biden-Harris administration bowed down to the government employees union. Taxpayers and veterans who receive care from underperforming workers will pay the price. price”.
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A U.S. Army and Vietnam War veteran attends a Memorial Day event at the Santa Fe National Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
In 2017, under the previous administration, VA failed to negotiate with AFGE on the implementation of this law, as legally required by the VA contract. As a result, the agency repeatedly received court orders to reinstate laid-off employees, the source said.
But current VA leadership is adamant that no employees previously fired for serious crimes such as patient abuse have been reinstated.
“VA has made sure bad actors can’t return to work and has saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars,” a department spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
“He [Trump] The administration’s implementation of the 2017 law was repeatedly struck down by the courts, putting the VA at risk of having to rehire people who committed abuse, harassment and criminal activity against patients, and putting taxpayers on the hook. for more than a billion dollars.”
The spokesperson said the VA will continue to hold accountable employees who mistreat patients or commit other transgressions, and that anyone who is reinstated must meet that high standard or be fired.
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“Veterans trust the VA at the highest rate in history, and we are providing more care and more benefits to more veterans than ever before,” they said.
The law that Trump signed written by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.was the Department of Veterans Affairs Whistleblower Protection and Accountability Act, intended to do what its title stated.
It gave the agency new authority to fire employees for poor performance or misconduct more quickly, and led to multiple complaints being filed by the public employees union AFGE.
Some of the reinstated employees were originally fired for sleeping on the job, unauthorized access to employees’ medical records and failure to follow procedures, according to FOIA documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
