Justice Department declines to prosecute VA employees who defrauded $400K

... and who still have jobs?! This may be just the tip of the iceberg in our Federal Bureaucracy too. When I think "drain the swamp" this kind of thing is what I think of.

Two employees in the Dept. of Vet Affairs took advantage of transfer rules to defraud the tax payers (us) of $400K each. And when they were caught, the Dept. of Justice declined to prosecute. And stuff like this happens more often than you think. It happens often enough that only two papers run with the story although the Houston Chronicle link doesn't work anymore.

According to the Washington Examiner, the inspector general recommended both women for prosecution, but the Justice Dept. declined to prosecute.

A pair of Department of Veterans Affairs officials who defrauded the VA for $400,000 will not face any criminal charges, despite an inspector general's request that they both face a criminal investigation.

In an inspector general report made public in September, Diana Rubens and Kimberly Graves were both accused of manipulating a VA program meant to ease the strain of moving agency employees between cities. The watchdog referred the matter to the Department of Justice for a criminal inquiry.

But prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia ruled against pursuing charges late last week, the Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday, effectively eliminating any possibility that the two officials will face consequences for their actions.

So because the two wouldn't face actual criminal charges, the agency planned to demote them. You read that right -- demote -- not fire. Government union rules being what they are, and they were put in place with the best of intentions (to prevent political abuse), but the road to hell is paved with those, and now we have a bureaucracy full of people nearly impossible to fire when they do stuff like this.

Oh and they didn't even get demoted!

The VA declined to fire Rubens and Graves in November. Although the agency planned instead to demote the embattled officials, a paperwork mistake spared the two from even that minimal punishment.

Someone screwed up form I69.b, so they skated with $400K each.



Are we sure we haven't been invaded by aliens long ago?

The caper in question has it's own Wiki too. They quote the relevant portions in the original post I linked.

According to American Thinker, both women (Graves and Rubens) were informed by their superior of the loopholes in the transfer system that would let them pocket large sums of taxpayer dollars. If the superior is advising the employees, see what I said earlier about these women being the tip of the iceberg.

Hickey resigned her post in October 2015 amid investigations into her role aiding the two women in their transfer scheme.[3] The VA announced it would review its transfer program due to the growing number of cases involving abuse of authority.[1][4][5]

Rubens expensed nearly $275,000 in moving fees to the VA while relocating to Philadelphia, attracting the attention of the VA's inspector general. Upon investigation, it was learned that Rubens had used her position to pressure a subordinate to leave their job at the Philadelphia office, thus opening that position. Rubens then volunteered for the position that held significantly reduced responsibilities, but managed to retain her $181,000 salary. Rubens and was transferred to a separate location and demoted while under investigation.[1][2]

Rubens and Graves both made appeals to the Merit Systems Protection Board and pleaded the Fifth amendment regarding the allegations. The Inspector General recommended the Justice Department proceed with criminal charges.[6]

A judge overturned Rubens’ demotion in January 2016, sparking outrage. The court stated that punishing Rubens and Graves was inconsistent disciplining behavior by the VA, since it had not similarly punished other employees that had committed offenses.[7] The judge also cited her superiors’ foreknowledge of her intent as evidence that no laws had been broken.[8] Rubens was reinstated effective immediately and was awarded back-pay.[9][10][4]

This is all out of WIki via American Thinker. Don't you like how she pressuers subordinates to vacate posts so she can take them and do less work and keep her salary. Then they plead the Fifth to the Board and a judge overturns the demotion because the discipline was inconsistent (meaning that this is just the tip of the abuse iceberg) and awards her back pay!

So we can't even do the right thing once because it wouldn't be fair to start doing the right thing. Nope! The system is corrupt so it must stay corrupt I guess.

Yes, this is what drain the swam should mean, and civil service reform is the place to start.

Massive corruption.

These kinds of exposures will be headlining for years I'm afraid.

JUSTICE department??? pffft.

Evidently, there is no justice in the justice department. The VA is another government organization corrupt with greed and gimme, gimme, gimme by the people in charge of operations. Just disgusting this has been going on and even more so with no corrective action.

Let's hope some things change soon.

a reply to: ketsuko

They must be too busy going after those darn Russian hackers... who has time for prosecuting domestic crooks for real crimes when we've got Ruskies to demonize for pretend crimes???

Sorry for the snark. But my point remains. Our political outrage is selective to say the least.

These 2 stole near a million dollars of OUR money just like they stole it from a bank. They should be tried, and if found guilty, thrown in jail like and other thief. I am so sick of the government, it's massive fraud, corruption and nepotism. Unfortunately it is now like the "to big to fail" companies. They know we can never get rid of them all barring an insurrection.

ETA: the fact they didn't get fired is laughable, but they didn't even get demoted.........hell, I bet they get promoted in a few months behind the scenes because government loves people that are corrupt amoral a**holes like they are.

a reply to: ketsuko


So much for bringing up our children, with morals ....

Thou shall not steal ....

Nor take anything that belongs to another?

That wrong always has adverse consequences .....

That cheats and thieves will never prosper .....


When obviously they do, and then laugh at those who do have

standards and morals

Justice Department declines to prosecute VA employees who defrauded $400K

That is just effed up.

Stole money and still gets to keep their jobs.

That is just wrong.

Union crooks covering for other union crooks.

Where do I apply for a pice of than action with no penalty to fear?

This is the kind of corruption people are sick of, and what Hillary represented as a candidate. This is an example of the kind of thing which is why she lost. She is no different than these employees, simply a different crime.

Is also why I hope people keep sticking their fingers in their ears, saying lalala and insisting Hillary did nothing wrong. Every time they do more and more people that know better get irritated by it and wake up more and more to how bad the corruption is.

The left needs to accept the truth about Hillary because the more they try to defend her, the worse off it is. The corruption in government is too much.

I say this as a person who has many leftist ideals and wants to see the left succeed. But I want to see the left succeed for the ideals, NOT for corrupt lip service to those ideals as the prize.

The worst thing a person can do for their cause is stand by leaders who do not actually stand for or promote the cause. Is better for the party to lose than it is to win in such a scenario as every such victory hurts the party more than it helps.

Every person who stood by Hillary might as well be standing by these thieves getting away with the money. It's the exact same kind of corruption and double standards. Something I am sick of. If the democrats wanted to really win, they'd turn on Hillary and join the Right in doing the right thing in terms of protecting our rule of law and refusing to accept legal double standards. We the people NEED a big win for rule of law, because Hillary and things like what happened here are going a long way towards convincing us we don't have one.

WTF, stealing from veterans..bullet to the head fixes that. And no charges..or even being fired?..there must be many skeleton's they do not want uncovered..the amount of money being embezzled must be staggering.
I think as many as possible should make their displeasure known..just f@cking sick

I would venture to guess that there a lot other 'higher-ups' just as involved in these orchestrating schemes for the better positions and accessing the 'cookie jar'

these schemes are not devised or learned overnight, it takes time and coaching to learn the ins-&-outs of successful navigation....
Loyalty to the many other 'low-lifes' in the bowels of government is the entry ticket, and from what I glean from various Alt news sources... there is a vibrant underworld in government circles... of a Unity generated by Dark practices like 'Spirit Cooking' and all sorts of dark spirit ritualized lifestyles which affords the membership a great deal of immunity from stuff like prosecutions for criminal conduct,

perhaps a deeper investigation of these two persons would lead to a very bizzare underworld under all that perfume & nail polish...... an underworld of satanic activity that is worth the $400k to keep the info from getting out to the public and to retain these two female persons for their political votes and whatever else they bring to the clandestine and underground group






Is there Cosmic Synchronicity at play here
my post sounds very close to edgy and appears to be accusative of the DC Swampland in general... why would post Number 13,300 address this sensitive issue?
or am I just into a state of paranoia

a reply to: Nickn3

you missed the boat, trump will be president in a few weeks and you won`t get away with stuff like this on his watch.

a reply to: St Udio

Yes, I mentioned tip of the iceberg. It's proven in the piece. They were coached by their boss who surely had to have been taught and taught others.

They won their appeal because the judge said they were being treated unfairly. In other words, why discipline them and not all the others? That implies this is common and not just these two, and judge excuses them by pointing to all the others who have gotten away with it instead of doing the right thing and putting his or her foot down. Makes you wonder how corrupt the judge is.

People need to make as much noise as possible about this blatant corruption. It's to absurd I was hoping it was a hoax.

a reply to: Slickinfinity

People are still in denial about Hillary and the blatant corruption protecting her, don't hold your breath this will be any different.

a reply to: ketsuko

Under the Bush this kind of fraud and corruption was not as bad, But under the Obama Administration this had become regular practice among the Democrats. From Hillary on down. The Federal "Democratic" Justice Bureau will not prosecute even one their own but will go hide and tail after the Republicans for far less.

Obama made the govt more corrupt by his own example, look how many tax payer vacations they took unnecessarily, Golfing almost daily, Parties at the white house with the rich and famous, and I am sure there is more examples of his own type of corruption.

So what do we expect from all those in the Democratic party to do but follow their Massa.