Veterans Affairs deputy secretary James Byrne fired 5 months after Senate confirmed Trump appointee

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) is introduced by Acting Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Byrne (R) before a talk by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (not pictured) at Nellis Air Force Base on September 7, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ethan Miller | Getty Images

Veterans Affairs Department Deputy Secretary James Byrne was fired Monday, amid controversy over the department's handling of a sexual assault allegation by a House staffer visiting a VA facility.

“Today, I dismissed VA Deputy Secretary James Byrne due to loss of confidence in Mr. Byrne's ability to carry out his duties,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie in a statement.

“This decision is effective immediately,” said Wilkie, whose move came just five months after Byrne was confirmed by the Senate.

Wilkie did not give any details of why he fired Byrne, a Naval Academy graduate who worked at the VA in senior positions for more than two years. 

Axios first reported Monday that Byrne had been fired.

Byrne's termination came as the VA continued to be criticized for how it treated an allegation that a House committee advisor had been sexually harassed and assaulted by a man last fall when she was in the cafeteria in the VA Medical Center in Washington.

The House advisor who alleged the assault, Navy veteran Andrea Goldstein, on Monday published an article on Jezebel.com criticizing Wilkie for “implying that I was a liar” in his recent letter to House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mark Takano, D-Calif., in which Wilkie called Goldstein's allegations “unsubstantiated claims.”

“We believe that V.A. is a safe place for all veterans to enter and receive care and services, but the unsubstantiated claims raised by you and your staff could deter our veterans from seeking the care they need and deserve,”  Wilkie wrote in his letter to Takano about Goldstein's account.

Goldstein, in the Jezebel article posted online shortly before Byrne's ouster became publicly known, wrote, “Secretary Wilkie's continued refusal to take ownership of the hostility and sexual violence at VA further perpetuated this hostile culture by both revictimizing a veteran in public and denying the culture of harassment and assault whose existence is well documented.”

VA Inspector General Michael Missal had investigated Goldstein's claims when they were first made in September.  

Last month, Missal sent Wilkie a letter disputing Wilkie's characterization of Goldstein's claims as being “unsubstantiated.”

Missal noted that he he had discussed Goldstein's allegations with Byrne and VA Chief of Staff Pamela Powers in mid-January and “specifically told them that the investigation had been closed without charges and that no other characterization could or should be made regarding the outcome of the investigation,” Military.com reported Jan. 16.

“Neither I nor my staff told you or anyone else at the Department that the allegations were unsubstantiated,” Missal wrote Wilkie.

“I trust that this clarifies this matter and you will ensure that no one is informed that our investigation concluded that the sexual assault allegation at issue was not substantiated.”

Takano, in his own letter to Wilkie about the case, called his comment on Goldstein's claims “shockingly tone-deaf,” and said Wilkie's letter was “flippant.”

Byrne, a former Marine infantry officer, was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 81-11 last September.

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Before his confirmation,  Byrne had served as acting secretary of the VA since August 2018. He was named general counsel of the VA a year earlier.

Byrne previously worked at Lockheed Martin Corp. as chief privacy officer for that defense contractor, and lead attorney for information technology, cybersecurity and counterintelligence.

He also had worked as an international narcotics prosecutor for the Justice Department.

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