The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing lifelong healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers and outpatient clinics located throughout the country. Non-healthcare benefits include disability compensation, vocational rehabilitation, education assistance, home loans, and life insurance. The VA also provides burial and memorial benefits to eligible veterans and family members at 135 national cemeteries.
Jefferson Bingham Miller is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Florida's 1st congressional district from 2001 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, his district included all of Escambia County, Santa Rosa County, Okaloosa County, Walton County, Holmes County and Washington County.
Academi, formerly known as Blackwater, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1996, by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acquired by a group of private investors. In 2014, Academi merged with Triple Canopy to form Constellis Holdings.
The Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers serves as an interagency law enforcement training body for 105 United States government federal law enforcement agencies. The stated mission of FLETC is to "...train those who protect our homeland". Through the Rural Policing Institute (RPI) and the Office of State and Local Training, it provides tuition-free and low-cost training to state, local, campus and tribal law enforcement agencies.
Patrick Francis Kennedy is a former career Foreign Service Officer who served as the U.S. State Department's Under Secretary of State for Management. He was Director of the Office of Management Policy, Rightsizing and Innovation. He has been Deputy Director for Management at the cabinet level Office of the Director of National Intelligence; he returned to the Department of State on May 7, 2007. Kennedy was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform and previously served as Chief of Staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He was the Assistant Secretary of State for Administration for the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 2001. In 2014, Kennedy was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
The United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a permanent independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency whose basic legislative authority comes from four federal statutes: the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act, and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). OSC's primary mission is the safeguarding of the merit system in federal employment by protecting employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices (PPPs), especially reprisal for "whistleblowing." The agency also operates a secure channel for federal whistleblower disclosures of violations of law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; gross waste of funds; abuse of authority; and substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. In addition, OSC issues advice on the Hatch Act and enforces its restrictions on partisan political activity by government employees. Finally, OSC protects the civilian employment and reemployment rights of military service members under USERRA. OSC has around 140 staff, and the Special Counsel is an ex officio member of Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), an association of inspectors general charged with the regulation of good governance within the federal government.
Joseph Edward Schmitz is an American lawyer, former inspector general of the United States Department of Defense and a former executive with Blackwater Worldwide. After working as a watchdog at the Pentagon for three and a half years, Schmitz resigned to return to the private sector. Although allegations questioning his stewardship of the inspector general's office surfaced nine months after his resignation, a high-level review board, the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, cleared him of wrongdoing in 2006. He was named one of Donald Trump's foreign policy advisors for his 2016 presidential campaign.
John Timothy Griffin is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 57th attorney general of Arkansas. He previously served as the 20th lieutenant governor of Arkansas, from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas between 2006 and 2007 and U.S. Representative for Arkansas's 2nd congressional district from 2011 to 2015.
The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General was established along with the Department of Homeland Security itself in 2002 by the Homeland Security Act. Its website describes its mission as "supervis[ing] independent audits, investigations, and inspections of the programs and operations of DHS, and recommends ways for DHS to carry out its responsibilities in the most effective, efficient, and economical manner possible."
John Herbert Holdridge was an American foreign service officer and diplomat, who was best known for having taken part in, and later recounted, Henry A. Kissinger's secret 1971 initiative to restore United States diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore (1975–1978) and Indonesia (1982–1986).
The Nisour Square massacre occurred on September 16, 2007, when employees of Blackwater Security Consulting, a private military company contracted by the US government to provide security services in Iraq, shot at Iraqi civilians, killing 17 and injuring 20 in Nisour Square, Baghdad, while escorting a U.S. embassy convoy. The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States. In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried and convicted in U.S. federal court; one of murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges; all four convicted were controversially pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020. U.N. experts said the pardons "violate U.S. obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level”.
United States Intelligence Community Oversight duties are shared by both the executive and legislative branches of the government. Oversight, in this case, is the supervision of intelligence agencies, and making them accountable for their actions. Generally oversight bodies look at the following general issues: following policymaker needs, the quality of analysis, operations, and legality of actions.
Robert Leon Wilkie Jr. is an American lawyer and government official who served as the United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs from 2018 to 2021, during the Trump administration. He was previously Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness during the Trump administration, from November 2017 to July 2018. A Naval intelligence officer in the Reserve, he was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs in the administration of President George W. Bush.
Eric J. Boswell is an American diplomat who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security from 2008 to 2012. He previously served in the same post from 1996 to 1998.
Francis Xavier Taylor was the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), nominated by President Obama in 2014. In that role, he provided the Secretary, DHS senior leadership, the DHS components, and state, local, tribal and private sector partners with homeland security intelligence and information they need to keep the country safe, secure and resilient. DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis is a member of, and the Department’s liaison to, the U.S. Intelligence Community.
The 2014 Veterans Health Administration controversy is a reported pattern of negligence in the treatment of United States military veterans. Critics charged that patients at the VHA hospitals had not met the target of getting an appointment within 14 days. In some hospitals, the staff falsified appointment records to appear to meet the 14-day target. Some patients died while they were on the waiting list. Defenders agreed that it was unacceptable to falsify data, but the 14-day target was unrealistic in understaffed facilities like Phoenix, and most private insurers did not meet a 14-day target either. By most measures, the VHA system provides "excellent care at low cost," wrote Paul Krugman, who believes that the attacks on the VHA system are motivated by conservatives who want to discredit a government program that works well. Conservative legislators have proposed privatizing the VHA, and legislative reforms that will make it easier for veterans to go to private doctors.
The Veteran Access to Care Act of 2014 is a bill that would allow United States veterans to receive their healthcare from non-VA facilities under certain conditions. The bill is a response to the Veterans Health Administration scandal of 2014, in which it was discovered that there was systematic lying about the wait times veterans experienced waiting to be seen by doctors. By June 5, 2014, Veterans Affairs internal investigations had identified a total of 35 veterans who had died while waiting for care in the Phoenix VHA system. Another audit determined that "more than 57,000 veterans waited at least 90 days to see a doctor, while another 63,000 over the last decade never received an initial appointment."
The Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014, also known as the Veterans Choice Act, is a United States public law that is intended to address the ongoing Veterans Health Administration scandal of 2014. The law expanded the number of options veterans have for receiving care and granted the United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs more power to fire senior executives. The Veterans Health Administration scandal of 2014 began with the discovery that there was on-going systematic lying by the Veterans Health Administration about the wait times veterans experienced waiting to be seen by doctors. By June 5, 2014, Veterans Affairs internal investigations had identified a total of 35 veterans who had died while waiting for care in the Phoenix VHA system. Another audit determined that "more than 57,000 veterans waited at least 90 days to see a doctor, while another 63,000 over the last decade never received an initial appointment."
Joseph Vincent Cuffari is an American government administrator who has been the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security since 2019. He previously held positions in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. Cuffari was also a policy advisor to Arizona Governors Jan Brewer and Doug Ducey.
