VA secretary to be served with subpoena over Phoenix health care scandal
May 8, 2014, 8:00 AM | Updated: 1:22 pm
The House Veterans Affairs Committee will subpoena beleaguered VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.
CNN reported Thursday that the subpoena is seeking more information, specifically e-mails, about
delays in the VA health system in Phoenix, that possibly led to the deaths of up to 40 patients.
In the e-mails Shinseki and other VA officials may have discussed
destruction of what the committee called “an alternate or interim waitlist”
for veterans seeking care in Phoenix.
Patient care has also come under fire in Colorado.
Three officials at the Phoenix headquarters were placed on leave a week ago while allegations of corruption are investigated.
Director Sharon Helman, associate Lance Robinson and an unnamed employee were removed temporarily from their positions.
Shinseki has said he will not resign. He answered in a letter Wednesday that VA employees used “transitory or
interim notes … for reference purposes” as they were moving information to
the new electronic waitlist system. Regulations of the National Archives and
Records Administration require that such notes be destroyed when they are no
longer needed for reference, the VA said.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
