CNN Reporter Who Broke VA Story: ‘Throw Out Every Senior Manager’

Drew Griffin, the CNN reporter who led the investigation that broke the Veterans Affairs scandal last month, reported Monday afternoon on the several whistleblowers who had attempted to alert officials about the VA backlogs without corresponding action, and found himself almost speechless at the extent to which VA had failed to hold itself accountable.

Griffin said that there were multiple instances of whistleblowers coming forward and being ignored by the agency’s bureaucracy. He cited one example of a veteran with serious mental health issues who entered the VA system in 2003 and didn’t get a psychiatric evaluation until 2011.

RELATED: CNN Reporter: ‘Hard to Believe’ Washington Didn’t Know About VA Scandal

“Based on everything I know to date, I don’t think the VA can fix itself,” Griffin said. “I don’t know how you fix this. I really don’t know, if I was going to give advice, where I would give it, other than I would blanketly throw out every senior manager in the VA. I know that sounds harsh, but I don’t know how else you would do this surgically. There is an entire bureaucracy that has been allowing this to happen for years and years and years, and I don’t know how you get one administrator at the top who’s going to somehow change the culture without throwing out all these people.”

Watch the clip below, via CNN:

[Image via screengrab]

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