Let that sink in. VA bureaucrats at 40 locations were manipulating data to hide long waits for care, 316 veterans died and yet VA has only successfully fired fewer than 10 people for these issues.

It’s obvious that until those who caused the VA scandal are removed from the department’s payroll, efforts to reform the department will never succeed. Unfortunately, under this administration, that’s unlikely to happen. That’s because instead of properly holding problem employees accountable, VA is all-too-often content to simply make excuses — often excruciatingly bad ones — for their misbehavior.

VA’s handling of wait-time manipulation problems in Central Texas underscores this point. There, the department’s inspector general found systemic data manipulation at VA facilities throughout Austin, San Antonio and Kerrville. More than 20 employees admitted to cooking the books, with some saying they feared being fired for refusing to manipulate data. Despite the report’s damning findings, VA has not disciplined a single employee for this behavior.

So what’s VA’s excuse after its Central Texas employees were caught red-handed falsifying government data? “We cannot explain the actions of the schedulers.”

Of course they can’t. It’s hard to defend the indefensible.