A top Senate Republican is accusing the Inspector General’s office at the beleaguered Department of Veterans Affairs of smearing whistleblowers and victims of VA mismanagement in a long-running scandal in Wisconsin.

Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told acting VA Inspector General Linda Halliday that her office is blaming the wrong people for the VA’s errors and failing to cooperate with a congressional investigation.

“The VA OIG’s entire course of conduct during its interactions with the committee on this matter has been baffling,” Mr. Johnson wrote in a letter Wednesday obtained by The Washington Times. “The OIG has gone to great lengths to hide its work from Congress and the American public.”

Mr. Johnson said he’s incensed about a “white paper” that the IG’s office released last month regarding deaths at the VA Medical Center in Tomah, Wisconsin. In the 13-page document, the watchdog’s office defended the VA’s work and tried to discredit some of the people who brought the scandal to light.

For example, the IG’s white paper suggested that Dr. Christopher Kirkpatrick, a former Tomah doctor who committed suicide in 2009 on the same day he was fired, was a drug dealer, noting that a large amount of marijuana and other illegal substances were found in his home.

“I do not understand why the VA OIG would cite this information in its white paper-information that is irrelevant and vastly out of context to the Dr. Kirkpatrick’s criticism of the Tomah … prescribing practices and his death — except in a desperate attempt to discredit Dr. Kirkpatrick by implying he was a drug dealer,” Mr. Johnson wrote.

The Tomah VA facility is under state and federal investigations after complaints that patients were overmedicated, with one doctor being referred to as the “Candyman.” Whistleblower Ryan Honl, a former VA employee at Tomah, has accused the doctor of having a hand in the death of a 35-year-old Marine veteran at the facility last August as a result of “mixed drug toxicity.”

Mr. Honl met President Obama last week on his visit to Wisconsin and urged him to appoint an independent inspector general at the VA. But he said the president brushed him off, telling him that VA Secretary Bob McDonald “had it covered.”

“If they just pick someone new from inside the agency, it will be business as usual and the problems will continue,” Mr. Honl said after the meeting.

Critics say Ms. Halliday, who has worked for the VA since the 1990s, will not provide an independent voice to help clean up the agency. She is taking over for acting VA IG Richard Griffin, who resigned last month.

Mr. Johnson also blasted the IG’s office for implying in its white paper that he knew about the problems at the Tomah facility as far back as 2011. The senator said that’s untrue.

“When I did first learn of the tragedies at the Tomah VAMC in January 2015, I directed my staff to immediately begin an investigation,” he said. “I can only assume that the motivation of the VA OIG in making this accusation against me is to deflect criticism from the OIG. Similar to how the VA OIG shamelessly attacked whistleblowers and family members of the victims of the Tomah VAMC, the VA OIG appears to be attacking me in an attempt to discredit my committee’s investigation.”

A spokeswoman for the IG’s office did not respond immediately for comment.

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