The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) DEI office is a cesspool of toxic behavior, including sexual harassment and cover-ups, according to a report from The Daily Wire.
One senior manager fired another person because he viewed him as a competition. No, not for a job. Competition to “sexually harass the same employee.”
The report comes a week after the VA sent a memo to facilities about banning the iconic WWII kiss photo.
An internal probe, which The Daily Wire did not attach, revealed the employees spent more time going after each other than helping veterans in need:
At one point, a senior manager fired a mid-level manager because both men wanted to sexually harass the same employee. When a complaint was filed, a political appointee sat on it, apparently partly for racial reasons.The 125-page report paints a shocking portrait of the 400-person diversity office, in which employees spent much of their time filing complaints against each other instead of serving veterans. Employees engaged in “self-aggrandizing,” petty turf wars, and planned wasteful events, including one junket in which nine people travelled to dispense “diversity” training that was supposed to have been done by one person.Deputy Assistant Secretary Harvey Johnson, the leader of the Office of Resolution Management, Diversity & Inclusion (ORMDI), retired when confronted with evidence of his department’s behavior, as well as allegations that he had swept misconduct “under the rug.”Archie Davis, the ORMDI Chief of Staff, has been moved to a different office pending discipline after the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection (OAWP) concluded that he “engaged in misconduct of a sexual nature with a subordinate employee, including while he was in her direct chain of command,” “sexted’ with a different subordinate employee,” covered up allegations against colleague, and a slew of other infractions.
The ORMDI office is in charge of harassment prevention.
In January, the House Veterans Affairs Committee voted 22-1 to subpoena the VA over sexual harassment claims exposed in November in the DEI and ORMDI office.
One of the claims alleged that a whistleblower received “numerous unwarranted sexually suggestive and aggressive messages from their senior manager over the course of a year,” including offers of unequal access to office leadership and approving paid trips.“Allegedly, when the whistleblower did not agree to consensually engage with the senior manager, the senior manager’s attitude towards the whistleblower changed and the senior manager began allegedly bad mouthing the whistleblower to ORMDI leadership,” Bost’s office said in a statement.
Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough insisted no one covered up anything in ORMDI and DEI offices.
On February 26, Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL) announced the committee would “move forward with the requested transcribed interviews with eight senior VA leaders to determine why it took 45 days and a personal call from Chairman Bost to the VA Secretary for VA to do anything.”
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