February 15, 2018

Ranking Member Walz Sends Letter To DOJ Requesting Review Of Hacked Email Allegations Made By VA Secretary Shulkin

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Ranking Member Tim Walz (D-MN), sent the following letter to Attorney General Jefferson Sessions urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to review allegations made by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Dr. David Shulkin suggesting his chief of staff’s email may have been hacked:

 

The Honorable Jefferson Sessions

Attorney General

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20530

 

Dear Mr. Sessions:

 

On February 14, 2018, Politico reported the email account of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Chief of Staff, Ms. Vivieca Wright Simpson, may have been hacked.  In an interview with Politico, Dr. David Shulkin, Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs, alleged Ms. Simpson showed him evidence that her email had been hacked and that someone had been sending emails in her name, stating “this needs to be looked into.”[1]

In the VA Inspector General’s (OIG) report released on the same day as the interview, Administrative Investigation:  VA Secretary and Delegation Travel to Europe,[2] the OIG found that Ms. Simpson “willfully and knowingly made false representations to a VA ethics official and improperly altered an official record” in order to receive approval for Dr. Shulkin’s spouse to travel to Europe.  The record was an email from a VA employee coordinating the trip.  The email was altered to make it appear that Secretary Shulkin was receiving an award from the Danish Government, permitting VA to pay the cost of his wife’s airfare and per diem to accompany him on the trip.  The OIG stated in its report that “the OIG referred this specific matter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to consider it for potential criminal prosecution; DOJ decided not to prosecute at this time.”

According to multiple statements made by Secretary Shulkin, Ms. Simpson denied having sent the email with altered information, and showed him evidence to support this claim. Allegedly evidence exists of a “spoof” account mimicking Ms. Simpson’s official email account. Emails from this “spoof” account were allegedly sent to personnel within the agency.

These allegations from the VA Secretary that the third senior-most official at VA may have been the target of criminals committing fraud and computer intrusion with the intention of harming her reputation, and that these criminal activities took place on VA computers and networks are very serious.  I refer these claims of email intrusion and tampering on government computers and networks, and whether other cyber crimes have been committed against senior-level VA officials or on VA computers and its network for your review. 

If you have any questions, please contact Grace Rodden, Minority Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, at grace.rodden@mail.house.gov or at

(202) 225-9756.

 

Sincerely,

 

TIM WALZ

Ranking Member

 

You can read the letter from Ranking Member Walz to Attorney General Sessions online here.

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[1] Arthur Allen, VA audit: Aide expensed Shulkin wife’s European travel under false pretense, Politico, February 14, 2018, at https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/14/david-shulkin-europe-travel-347064.

[2] VA Office of the Inspector General, Administrative Investigation: VA Secretary and Delegation Travel to Europe (2018), available at https://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-17-05909-106.pdf.