VA blocks its benefits employees from speaking freely to the department’s lawyers

The Veterans Affairs Department has instructed employees in its benefits office not to interact with VA’s cadre of attorneys without direct permission from political leadership, raising questions as to how employees there will seek legal advice. 

The Veterans Benefits Administration frequently turns to VA’s Office of General Counsel for questions on adjudicating claims, handling litigation and interpreting new laws and directives. Cheryl Mason, a senior advisor to VA Secretary Doug Collins, gave directions that VBA business lines and staff offices “should have NO direct contact with OGC” without first receiving permission from Mason, according to a series of emails recently sent to staff and obtained by Government Executive. 

“That means no one in VBA should make a call or send an email to anyone in OGC without prior approval,” according to one such email. 

The policy appears to mark the latest effort by the Trump administration to sideline career attorneys. It has fired or pushed out lawyers in key roles at the Justice Department. It has also consolidated the general counsel’s regional presence within the Health and Human Services Department, going from 10 offices down to four and beginning the layoff process for two-thirds of those staff. 

Employees were originally told they could not communicate with any attorneys at OGC even at the regional level, but the policy was subsequently loosened to allow for such engagement so long as every interaction was tracked and reported up to the senior advisor level. Regional office employees were tasked with, when interacting with regional VA counsel, recording the date of the interaction, with whom they met, the nature of the discussion and how long the interaction lasted. 

Mason, the senior advisor directing the new policy, is President Trump’s nominee to serve as assistant secretary for VA’s Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection. VA established the office in Trump’s first term as a path for employees to disclose wrongdoing and to protect those workers from retaliation, though it has not always delivered on that promise. 

‘Running rogue’ 

VA’s general counsel office employs more than 600 attorneys and around 900 employees in total. In an update to its website in January on the general counsel office’s role, VA noted that its attorneys ensure “legally compliant implementation of VA laws, particularly those involving benefits and health care for veterans.” OGC also protects “VA from litigation outcomes that inhibit efficient service to veterans” and helps oversee a “legally sound and timely claims appeals process for veterans.” 

OGC maintains a Benefits Law Group set up to work directly with VBA. It is not immediately clear what impact the new directive will have on that partnership. 

Richard Sauber, VA’s former general counsel under President Biden, said the new policy had the potential for “gumming up the works” within VBA. He saw only two potential motives for the change: to either stop VBA employees from getting legal advice—which he called a “huge negative—or to slow down the process sufficiently so “things don’t get done.” 

“The implication is that they have some underlying fear that legal advice that the 600 dedicated civil servants, many of whom are themselves veterans, would give would somehow not be in line with what their political views are,” Sauber said. 

Dave Lehmann, a private sector attorney accredited with VA to help veterans receive the benefits they have earned, said there could be drastic impacts from the new policy limiting OGC’s interactions with VBA.  

“They’re taking VBA and essentially running it rogue outside of any legal oversight,” Lehmann said. 

He noted that VA’s attorneys can issue precedential rulings on important benefits adjudication cases, which VBA employees then lean on to determine whether to grant veterans benefits in the future. In one example with far-reaching impacts, OGC has set the precedent that veterans qualify for benefits if a service-connected issue caused them to gain weight and being overweight in turn caused a disability.