Subscribers to the federal government’s VetResources newsletter are used to getting some helpful tips from the Department of Veterans Affairs in their inboxes every week, like how to secure spousal veteran benefits, enroll in VA dental coverage or get $1,500 off a new Harley motorcycle.
But hours after a government shutdown began on Wednesday, subscribers got a heavy dose of politics instead.
Headlined “How the government shutdown impacts VA,” the newsletter began by saying funding had expired for portions of the agency at midnight — and it was all the Democrats’ fault.
“President Trump opposes a lapse in appropriations, and on September 19, the House of Representatives passed, with the Trump Administration’s support, a clean continuing resolution to fund the government through November 21,” it stated. “Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands.”
The newsletter then listed several VA services that would cease during the shutdown, including veteran career counseling and the GI Bill Hotline. “VA will not permanently place headstones or maintain the grounds at VA national cemeteries,” it added.
Partisan politics were not what Lynn Hauka, an Army veteran in Texas, signed up for. She viewed the newsletter as another example of the Trump administration breaking the military’s longstanding norm of nonpartisanship – and as a violation of the Hatch Act, a federal law limiting political activities by federal employees.
“I was both furious and unsurprised,” said Hauka, 67, who was an intelligence analyst in the Army and later the Defense Department, and whose son served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I really would like Sec. [Doug] Collins to explain how he finds this acceptable. I would issue that challenge to him,” she added.
“Needless to say this really pissed me off.”
- Email from a combat veteran who received the partisan newsletter
Asked whether the agency had any concerns about inserting politics into the newsletter, a VA spokesperson defended the message as truthful.
“The message was 100% factual, and even mainstream media outlets and reporters say the same thing,” said the spokesperson, Pete Kasperowicz.
The VA would not say how many people would have received the email, but its reach could be considerable. The VA provides health care to around 9 million veterans each year, and the VetResources newsletter says it’s meant not just for veterans but their family members and caregivers.
Breaking with past practice — and perhaps the law — the Trump administration has been happy to use the machinery of the federal government to politicize the shutdown. Some government websites showed a message blaming Democrats for the funding lapse, using similar language to the VA newsletter. Employees across the federal government received the anti-Democrat message in their inboxes on Tuesday shortly ahead of the funding deadline.
And HuffPost reported Wednesday that furloughed employees inside the Department of Health and Human Services were told to set an out-of-office reply that pinned the shutdown on Democrats. An email to workers said setting an autoreply was “required.”
Are you a federal employee with something to share? You can find our reporter on Signal at davejamieson.99 or email him at dave.jamieson@huffpost.com.
New polling on the shutdown actually shows that more Americans believe Trump and Republicans caused the lapse in funding that has caused many agencies to partially close. In a Washington Post survey, 47% of respondents said the president and the GOP were responsible for the situation, compared with just 30% attributing it to Democrats.
But who’s really to blame is beside the point. Ethics experts say using government resources to play politics not only violates guidelines and potentially the law, but it can also undermine trust in crucial government services that need to be delivered impartially.
“I really would like Sec. [Doug] Collins to explain how he finds this acceptable. I would issue that challenge to him.”
- Lynn Hauka, Army veteran
Donald Sherman, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told HuffPost earlier this week that an agency should never send the message that “certain people are not welcome to avail themselves of government services based upon their political ideology.”
One combat veteran who shared the VetResources newsletter with HuffPost said he was livid to see partisanship in a VA email but didn’t want to be named in a story. Tellingly, the vet said he was worried he could jeopardize his health care or disability benefits by publicly criticizing the VA under this administration.
“Needless to say this really pissed me off,” he said in an email. “I don’t need the VA being partisan, too.”
The cost-cutting by the Trump administration and so-called Department of Government Efficiency has sparked alarm among veterans that VA health care and benefits could deteriorate. The agency said this summer that it expects resignations, early retirements and attrition to push an estimated 30,000 employees out the door. Collins has tried to assure Congress that services won’t be impacted despite the loss of manpower.
Hauka, who has a service-connected disability, said she has received “fantastic service” from the VA over the years. But now she worries that the public’s confidence in the agency could be shaken, not just from workforce cuts but from partisan games like this week’s newsletter.
“To me, this just seems like one more little way to undermine trust in the VA,” she said. “It’s just trying to get us to accept lawbreaking and ethical lapses as normal. It’s infuriating.”
Correction: This story originally misstated the number of VA employees the agency expected to leave this year. It is 30,000, not 80,000.