Emails show top VA diversity official was told not to condemn Charlottesville violence
Source: The Hill
BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 12/05/18 09:34 PM EST
A top Trump appointee at the Department of Veterans Affairs reportedly told the agency’s chief diversity officer not to condemn white supremacists after the violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., according to new emails obtained by The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Georgia Coffey, a VA senior executive, pushed the agency to issue a statement condemning the “repugnant display of hate and bigotry by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan,” according to the emails from August 2017.
Her pressure came after Trump blamed “both sides” for the deadly clash at the rally between white supremacists and counter-protesters. One woman died and dozens more were injured.
Coffey, a nationally known expert on workplace diversity and race relations, shared a draft of her remarks with the public affairs office just days after the rally. Her prepared statement called Charlottesville “a tragic reminder that our work in civil rights and inclusion is not finished.”
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/419983-emails-show-top-wh-diversity-official-was-told-not-to-condemn
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From exactly one year ago:
After Charlottesville, Trump Appointee Silenced a Senior Veterans Affairs Official Who Denounced “Hate and Violence”
BY NICK SCHWELLENBACH | FILED UNDER INVESTIGATION | DECEMBER 06, 2017
Peter Shelby, Assistant Secretary for Office of Human Resources & Administration at the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, rebuked a senior VA official for posting a newsletter online that criticized the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. (Photo: Veterans Affairs; Illustration by POGO)
Another White House Appointee Told Official to Stand Down
A White House appointee at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) directed the removal of an official public statement critical of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has learned. The statement also expressed the VA’s commitment to anti-discrimination. Another Trump appointee rebuked the statement’s author, a high-level career official who headed the VA’s diversity office, and counseled her for posting the statement to the VA’s website. The episode prompted the official to leave her job shortly thereafter, sources said.
The case is the latest involving government materials being removed from government websites during the Trump administration. Critics contend the removal and revision of online materials is sometimes driven by politics and a desire to excise inconvenient information, such as the deletion from the Treasury Department’s website a Treasury analysis of how little workers benefit from corporate tax cuts. The Environmental Protection Agency scrubbed online references to climate change and removed resources for state, local, and tribal governments on how best to adapt to climate change.
It is considered a best transparency practice for agencies to provide notice when government information is removed from websites, and to provide an explanation for the removal and an estimated date for reposting.
Despite recent comments from VA Secretary David Shulkin stating that “under this Administration, VA is committed to becoming the most transparent organization in government,” the VA site has no notice that the official’s statement was removed or why. Contacted by POGO, the VA offered no comment.
More:
https://www.pogo.org/investigation/2017/12/after-charlottesville-trump-appointee-silenced-senior-veterans-affairs-official-who-denounced-hate-and-violence/
