Whistleblower Advocate and Washington Insider Continues To Maintain Status Despite Exposure
Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project purports to help whistleblowers, but many whistleblowers say he benefits himself at their expense.
The head of a leading whistleblower advocacy group continues to be invited to Capitol Hill despite previously being exposed by me.
Tom Devine is the legal director of the Government Accountability Project (GAP), which provides legal and other services to federal whistleblowers.
A fixture in DC, Devine has carved out a niche as an expert in whistleblower matters.
He’s not only represented significant whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Tom Drake, and others but was instrumental in the passage of the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA).
In January 2021, I did an expose of Devine for The American Conservative, (TAC) showing he often traded on his status, leveraging his relationships to target whistleblowers he didn’t like while getting special treatment for his clients.
Devine engaged in the same retaliatory actions that he claimed to abhor.
“And not sure I understand what type of questions are being sought? i.e., one direction would be whether agency is willing and able to hold DeNofrio accountable. Another would be questioning for his evidence,” Devine wrote on October 9, 2019, to staff inside the US Department of Veteran Affairs.
DeNofrio is Jay DeNofrio, a whistleblower from the Altoona VA, and Devine was suggesting that the VA’s internal investigative arm target DeNofrio.
That investigative arm is the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection (OAWP), which was created as part of former President Trump’s sweeping VA reform bill in 2017 the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act.
OAWP, rather than fixing the problem, has largely contributed to making the problem worse, by targeting whistleblowers and failing to investigate their complaints.
It culminated in a blistering 2019 VA Office of Inspector General report, enumerating the many problems with OAWP.
One of the problems mentioned was a mentorship program that Devine was pushing behind the scenes.
“In 2017, the OAWP established a whistleblower reintegration program, which was later renamed the Whistleblower Mentorship Program. The OIG received complaints that the program was being used inappropriately to target whistleblowers,” The VA OIG Report found,
The report continued, “Ultimately, in its approximately 18-month existence, the program served one whistleblower as a test case, which was described by OAWP staff as successful. 117 Dr. Bonzanto {then head of OAWP} placed the program on hold because her assessment revealed that it had not met with identifiable or measurable success sufficient to warrant devotion of the resources that would be required to expand the program to serve more individuals.”
Another VA whistleblower, Jamie Fox, accused Devine of advising another of his clients to lie about their interactions.
None of that stopped the House Veteran Affairs Committee from inviting Devine to testify in a hearing held on May 19, 2021 on OAWP entitled PROTECTING WHISTLEBLOWERS AND PROMOTING ACCOUNTABILITY: IS VA MAKING PROGRESS?
Devine still bemoaned the closure of this mentorship program during his opening statement, “The same thing has happened to Brandon Coleman who initiated the effective counseling and mentoring program which has not been restored.”
But Coleman was originally a whistleblower at the Phoenix VA, who was hired at OAWP when it opened in 2017, but he has become a magnet for controversy since taking over at OAWP.
In a 2018 survey of VA whistleblowers, he was singled out as failing to follow through on whistleblower disclosures.
“I received an email after contacting them several times that was cryptic. I contacted Brandon Coleman who emailed me a form that was supposed to have been given to me several months prior. No response after I submitted the whistleblower form.” One whistleblower said in response to the survey.
In 2019, a FOIA request revealed that Coleman had been secretly putting together a list- what the VA whistleblowers would call a “hit-list”- with details, including media connections, about each whistleblower.
Coleman is Devine’s client, and he was GAP’s first VA whistleblower client.
Coleman was far from a legitimate whistleblower; though he was also from the Phoenix VA, he did not blow the whistle on the secret waitlist.
Instead, months later he blew the whistle on the closure of his addiction recovery program- his program.
At the time the Phoenix VA had a toxic reputation so when Coleman claimed this was done haphazardly and put suicidal veterans at risk, his rap on Fox News, local news in Arizona, and in other places, was easily believed.
As it turned out, there was plenty of reason to shut down his program; Coleman had become unstable and was the subject of several harassment complaints; in fact, according to Roger French, himself a VA whistleblower advocate, Coleman admitted to French that he had been involved in incidents of harassment.
Coleman only came forward to disclose the closure of his program after he’d been suspended.
Devine continues representing and defending Coleman.
Devine was primarily critical of OAWP during his opening statement at this most recent hearing.
“Whistleblowers report that in practice the agency operates without any published policy, is not bound by Whistleblower Protection Act legal burdens of proof, fails to communicate, routinely switches investigator without notice or explanation, cancelled its effective mentoring program, and cancelled its effective counseling program.” Devine said in his opening statement, continuing to push Coleman’s mentorship program.
This is not the first time Devine has criticized OAWP.
In a 2019 HVAC hearing on the same topic, he wrote this in his written statement, “OAWP enjoys a legislative and presidential mandate to help whistleblowers to make a difference and defend themselves against retaliation. Its authority to grant temporary relief against retaliation initially had an outstanding impact and is unprecedented.
“It made a difference in several cases described above. Unfortunately, despite genuine commitment from some leaders and an impressive initial track record, it has become a threatening source of frustration for whistleblowers as the rule, and an effective remedial agency as the exception.”
He wasn’t always a critic.
In 2018, he helped to coordinate the OAWP’s inclusion in the 2018 Whistleblower Summit.
By then OAWP was already toxic among VA whistleblowers, who complained, and forced the organizers to have a second panel, critical of OAWP.
I was on that panel, along with DeNofrio and others, and when it was time for questions, Devine monopolized the rest of the panel in a full throated defense of OAWP.
“In your agency there is an incredible inspiring movement of the whistleblowers to support each other,” he said, “As far as OAWP, two or three people out of twenty getting help, that’s 10-15%, that’s two to three times more than the Office of Special Counsel, which is twice more than any other remedial agency. And there’s a lesson to be learned from this; you don’t plan your life or expect your rights to be restored from a big brother.”
Internal emails showed that Devine was leveraging all his relationships to ingratiate himself into OAWP.
“Just wanted to make the introductions. Tom has offered to come in and help train our staff and to build a working relationship as to what people from the legal side are seeing in VA whistleblower cases. We have formed an OAWP council and I think we are meeting again on Oct 25, 2017. Even if you are not available this next meeting Tom, we would like to set something up to have you come in so we can learn from each other,” Coleman said in an email to another OAWP staffer.
All of that changed when Coleman, Devine’s sphere of influence in the VA, lost his influence.
Coleman was brought in by the first OAWP head, Peter O’Rourke. Though O’Rourke was a political operative, he was become acting VA Secretary for a few months.
Once Robert Wilkie replaced David Shulkin as VA Secretary, O’Rourke’s influence waned, and with it so did Coleman’s.
Devine’s criticism started when Coleman’s influence vaned.
Devine said in an email that his criticism reflected the whistleblowers he represents, “We have four OAWP wber clients, and they all told analogous stories of the agency disintegrating.”
In his testimony, in this recent hearing, Devine said his clients, Dr. Katherine Mitchell and Jeff Dittbarn, felt like they were stuck in limbo with OAWP.
He also called the last TAC story about him, “defamatory bullshit.”
The HVAC did not respond to an email for comment.
Denofrio and Scott Davis, a VA whistleblower from Atlanta, said they both met by telephonic conference with staff at HVAC on September 22, 2020.
At this conference, Devine was broached, both said, and the evidence in this article and more was presented to HVAC.
Davis said he remembers the staffer not wanting the broach the subject of Devine.
Davis, who has a background in public affairs, said he believes that HVAC sees Devine’s connections and media contacts as necessary to drawing enough attention to create change, and this may be why the look the other way.
DeNofrio wrote this in an email to HVAC staff on May 20, 2021.
“Of course, I cannot speak to the Committee’s motives or agenda, but I advised all of them that myself and other whistleblowers have brought serious issue directly to your attention repeatedly and specifically detailed our multiple meetings, conversations, and emails.
“It is disappointing that HVAC continues to give a platform to Mr. Devine.”