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Veterans ID Card System Run By Hillary Donor Is Still Down

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Jonah Bennett Contributor
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The new veterans’ ID card system, run by the former deputy secretary of veterans affairs, has experienced a litany of technical difficulties and is still offline.

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced in October that it would begin issuing Veteran Identification Cards in November, so that veterans could prove they had served in the military without lugging along a cumbersome DD-214 form. Once the application goes through, honorably discharged veterans are supposed to receive the ID card within 60 days.

However, the roll-out of the system, led by Scott Blackburn, the executive in charge for information and technology, has been fraught with issues. The application form opened on Nov. 29 and promptly crashed. It now features a message stating that the VA is working to fix the problem.

At this point, the VA has temporarily suspended all applications.

“We are aware some Veterans have experienced issues with the application process, but leaders of VA’s Office of Information and Technology are actively engaged in fixing them,” VA Press Secretary Curt Cashour told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Still, many Veterans have successfully registered for the card since the program was announced, and we are excited finally to begin providing this resource to Veterans, fulfilling a promise that was made to them more than two years ago under the previous Administration,” Cashour added.

TheDCNF reported in May that Blackburn had donated $500 to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Blackburn made the donation four months after Clinton stated that problems at the VA were not “as widespread as it has been made out to be” and blamed Republicans for politicizing the issue. Clinton’s campaign quickly backtracked on the claim after withering criticism. Before he was the executive in charge for information and technology, Blackburn served as the interim deputy secretary. He first joined the VA in 2014.

Congress passed legislation in 2015, mandating that the VA produce these ID cards, so that veterans could easily prove to businesses and others that they had in fact served in the military.

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