The House Veterans Affairs Committee voted Thursday to issue a subpoena to the Department of Veterans Affairs to force the agency to turn over documents related to allegations of sexual harassment within a VA office in charge of preventing harassment and discrimination.
“Subpoenas from this committee are extraordinary and rare,” committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said at Thursday’s committee meeting. “The last time the House Veterans Affairs Committee issued a subpoena was in 2016. In light of this, I do not take the step of issuing a subpoena today lightly. However, the horrific nature of the alleged misconduct, and the department’s failure to act properly and quickly, has led us to this point.”
The investigation centers on allegations from two whistleblowers who approached the committee last year about what they described as widespread sexual harassment within the VA’s Office of Resolution Management, Diversity and Inclusion.
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The first whistleblower told the committee the office is a “systemic sexual cesspool” and made allegations against three specific supervisors, according to a slideshow presented at Thursday’s meeting. The second whistleblower provided the committee with crude and aggressive text messages she received from her superiors in the office.
In one text, the chief of staff in the office allegedly told the…
