[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 47 (Tuesday, March 14, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S769-S770]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     NOMINATION OF JOSHUA D. JACOBS

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I intend to object to any unanimous 
consent request relating to the nomination of Joshua D. Jacobs, to be 
Under Secretary for Benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs, 
PN195.
  Mr. Jacobs, if confirmed, would lead the Veterans Benefits 
Administration at VA. This VA component is at the heart of my many 
congressional oversight requests dating back 2 years, which the VA has 
failed to adequately respond to. The whistleblower allegations raised 
in my oversight inquiries that the VA Office of Inspector General--
OIG--investigated have been vindicated, with the OIG issuing a report 
last year identifying potential conflicts of interest by the senior VA 
official at issue, Ms. Charmain Bogue. That official left Federal 
service and failed to cooperate further with OIG, as did the 
organization her husband worked for, Veterans Education Success, which 
had business before VA. This leaves questions open that VA has yet to 
resolve.
  I raised other issues as well that the OIG did not investigate, but 
which VA needs to respond to. This includes allegations that VA failed 
to protect sensitive and confidential information about publicly traded 
companies. The OIG decided that this was more properly investigated by 
the Securities and Exchange Commission, but to my knowledge, they have 
not investigated the matter either. It falls upon VA to provide 
transparency on the issue.
  I have also raised questions regarding FOIA records that show a 
senior VA official, Mr. Thomas Murphy, admitting to firing the person 
he suspected of being a whistleblower to my office in 2021. VA has not 
adequately responded to this apparently egregious violation of 
whistleblower-protections laws. I have raised serious additional 
questions as to what knowledge VA officials had of the underlying 
conflicts of interest at issue in my inquiry, how those conflicts were 
allowed to exist, why VA obstructed my investigation, and like issues.
  To date, VA has failed to provide a full and complete response to any 
of the five oversight letters I have sent to them since April 2021. And 
today, I am sending two more, to the VA and OIG, raising allegations 
whistleblowers have brought to my office concerning potential contract 
irregularities and illustrating the VA's failure to answer the many 
outstanding questions I have raised in the past. There are at least 27 
outstanding requests and questions raised in these letters that VA has 
inadequately addressed and, in many instances, not addressed at all. In 
instances where they have provided records, those have been heavily 
redacted with citations to FOIA exemptions, even though FOIA does not 
apply to Congress. In some instances, I have even had to rely upon 
third-party FOIA productions to provide information. It was only 
through a FOIA production, for example, that I learned that VA had 
begun drafting a response to me soon after my initial oversight letter, 
but never sent it. Instead, VA waited nearly 9 months to respond and 
even then declined to answer any of my questions other than requests 
for records, which it heavily redacted, and many of which it withheld 
in full. In

[[Page S770]]

other words, the draft response that I would have never received but 
for FOIA included more information than what VA eventually sent me.
  Because of my concerns with VA's obstruction and because the 
nomination relates to a position at the center of my oversight 
requests, I submitted questions for the record to Mr. Jacobs. Although 
I appreciate his response to my questions, I found a number of his 
answers unsatisfactory. For instance, he was provided with sufficient 
background in my questions with respect to my VA inquiry. I asked him, 
given the fact that he currently is exercising the powers of Under 
Secretary for Benefits, if he would commit to opening an investigation 
now into the serious questions I raised. He declined to respond, 
instead stating what he would do in certain hypothetical circumstances, 
even though the questions pertained to matters directly under his 
current purview. After I provided the names, dates, and specific 
allegations that need to be addressed but have failed to be for the 
past 2 years and after repeating many of those details in my questions 
to Mr. Jacobs, it was unacceptable for him to answer in hypotheticals. 
Many of his other responses were equally disappointing.
  My staff has also identified at least one document that seems to 
contradict Mr. Jacobs' claim that he did not play ``any role'' in VA's 
response to my inquiry. While I make no claim that Mr. Jacobs 
intentionally misled me in his responses, this document at least raises 
serious questions as to the accuracy of his blanket assertion. In the 
document, Mr. Jacobs reaches out to a senior VA legislative affairs 
official, multiple officials from VA's Office of General Counsel, and 
others, relaying information on a call he received about a matter 
related to my oversight, which he believed was the same issue that 
prompted my letters. This shows that he took at least one phone call on 
what he thought was the same matter and provided this information to 
those preparing a response to me. It is difficult to imagine that 
nobody ever responded to Mr. Jacobs, either by email or in-person 
conversations, in which he would have had additional conversations 
about VA's response. Accordingly, the email undercuts his assertion 
that he did not play ``any role'' in the matter. Moreover, VA's 
redaction-filled productions make it difficult to bring transparency.
  Because of VA's lack of transparency on these critical issues and Mr. 
Jacobs' evasive answers on a number of my questions, I must therefore 
object to any consideration of this nominee. I am more than willing to 
discuss with the VA and Mr. Jacobs how they can remedy the deficiencies 
in their responses.
  This hold is a reminder that executive agencies have an ongoing 
obligation to respond to congressional inquiries in a full and timely 
manner.

                          ____________________