Embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin met Thursday with White House chief of staff John Kelly amid scrutiny of Shulkin’s travel practices during a 2017 European trip, according to The Washington Post.
Shulkin, who also testified on Capitol Hill on Thursday, has acknowledged that the “optics of this are not good” but maintains that he did nothing improper. He did say he regrets distracting from his agency’s mission.
Shulkin’s standing with President Donald Trump is tenuous, according to the Post. But the President has previously highly regarded Shulkin, publicly praising his secretary’s efforts to turn around the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs.
Neither Shulkin nor the White House immediately responded to CNN requests for comment.
An investigation by VA Inspector General Michael Missal found “serious derelictions” by Shulkin and members of his staff during a July 2017 trip to England and Denmark, including that Shulkin’s chief of staff altered an email and made false statements that led the department to pay more than $4,000 for Shulkin’s wife, Merle Bari, to travel to Europe with her husband.
The report also found that Shulkin improperly accepted tickets to a Wimbledon tennis match, and criticized the trip’s heavy focus on sight-seeing. Details of the trip were first reported by The Washington Post.
Shulkin has said he will comply with all the department watchdog’s recommendations, and his lawyers told CNN that he has repaid the US Treasury for his wife’s travel. His chief of staff, Vivieca Wright Simpson, has also denied doctoring official emails and Shulkin has called for an investigation into whether her email account had been hacked or if someone other than her was sending emails from her account.
On Thursday, Democratic Rep. Tim Walz, the top Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate that claim.
Shulkin told Politico on Wednesday that he and the President spoke about the findings of the VA Inspector General report last week when he received the draft, and he said that the President had been supportive of him remaining in the job.
The uncertainty surrounding Shulkin’s standing comes as the VA is focused on overhauling its troubled health care system. The department is currently spending billions of dollars for America’s veterans to be treated outside the VA’s healthcare system.
Shulkin is not the first current or former Trump Cabinet official to be dogged for their travel practices. He is one of five top Trump officials to face investigation for his travel practices, including former HHS secretary Tom Price, who resigned last year amid scrutiny of his use of chartered flights for official business.
Criticism of Shulkin during a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday was muted, though both Chairman Phil Roe, R-Tennessee, and Walz, the panel’s top Democrat, expressed concern about the report’s findings.
One lawmaker, Rep. Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican, has called on Shulkin to resign. After Shulkin said Thursday that the “optics” of his European trip were “not good,” Coffman replied: “It’s not the optics that are not good. It’s the facts that are not good.”