President Donald Trump said Friday that he will be nominating acting Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie for the official secretary position.
“Acting Secretary Wilkie, who by the way has done an incredible job at the VA, and I’ll be informing him in a little while — he doesn’t know this yet — that we’re going to be putting his name up for nomination to be secretary of the Veterans Administration,” the president said at the White House during a speech on prison reform, with other cabinet members present.
“I’m sorry that I ruined the surprise,” Trump joked.
President Trump on Robert Wilkie: "We're going to be putting his name up for nomination to be Secretary of the Veterans Administration." pic.twitter.com/uXs4loUbpP
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 18, 2018
The previous secretary of the VA, David Shulkin, left the department after a scathing IG report revealed that he had misused VA funds while traveling. The IG report detailed that Shulkin’s chief of staff Vivieca-Wright Simpson altered emails that allowed funds to be approved for his wife to travel to Europe, and that Shulkin understated gifts received while in his role as Secretary of the VA. Shulkin also misled the media and the White House about his financial dealings within the VA.
In an interview with The Daily Caller shortly before his firing in February, he claimed someone had impersonated his chief of staff in government emails. (RELATED: Shulkin Says Impersonation Of Top Staffer Occurred Hours Before Facing Congress About Altered Email)
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