Loyalists of President Donald Trump are reassigning or purging members of the Department of Veterans Affairs that are perceived to be disloyal to the president and his agenda, The Washington Post reported.
The transfers include more than a dozen career civil servants, who have been assigned to lower-visibility roles outside the leadership suite, according to the newspaper, and the employees worked for agency leaders, some for more than two decades, in important support rules that would help a new secretary.
None were given reasons for the reassignments, said multiple people familiar with the moves, the Post reported.
Current and former employees, and some members of Congress, are calling the reshuffling a loyalty purge.
“These are people who served multiple administrations, but they only want them to serve the Trump administration. You can’t run a department like that,” said one employee who was moved, the Post reported.
Acting Secretary Peter O’Rourke and a small group of political appointees carried out the changes, marking a new period in an estrangement between Trump loyalists at the VA and civil servants. Current and former employees say that staff upheaval and declining morale are threatening to damage services to veterans, one of Trump’s main constituencies, according to the Post.
Secretary nominee Robert Wilkie has had no part in the changes, according to spokesman Curt Cashour and a Wilkie spokeswoman.
Twelve Democrats in the Senate wrote O’Rourke a letter Wednesday, saying he is “putting politics above veterans," and demanded he stop reshuffling VA employees immediately, the Post noted.
Employees are “absolutely not” being moved for political reasons, Cashour said, The New York Times reported.
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