The Hill
VA scandal dominates Sunday talk shows
By Keith Laing
05/25/14

The scandal involving a potential cover up of medical mistreatment of military veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs dominated discussion on the Sunday morning political talk shows.

Lawmakers from both parties appeared on every channel to discuss the still-emerging VA scandal, calling for responses ranging from a Department of Justice investigation to the firing of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

Even Democrats said the scandal was unlikely to go away anytime soon.

“We’re talking now about…credible and specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing across the country in more than 30 places,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said during an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

Blumenthal said the Obama administration should allow the Department of Justice to conduct a separate investigation of the complaints against the VA.

“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.

“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.”

Republicans were more critical of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s role in the scandal. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said during another segment on “Face The National" that the secretary should be fired.

“I think General Shinseki needs to go,” Kinzinger said. “He's a great American, but I don't think he's fit for this, I haven't even seen the level of outrage out of him that I think we ought to be hearing, to know that there were fake waiting lists to pad numbers.”

President Obama, who made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday to meet with U.S. troops, has thus far resisted calls to fire Shinseki, arguing that the agency was attempting to make corrections through methods like allowing veterans to go to non-VA facilities more often to help ease the backlog...

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