Nomination of Joshua D. Jacobs

Floor Speech

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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 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.

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