For months now, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has refused to accept responsibility for the role his office played in letting whistleblower complaints about the Tomah VA die in what has been described as “the equivalent of a congressional black hole.” Rather than step up and take responsibility for the failure, Johnson had previously come up with lame excuses about staff turnover, the timing of the election and “job interviews and stuff” being to blame.
In a recent interview with WISN, Johnson doubles down on this terrible excuse and again attempts to mislead about his inaction. Here’s what Johnson had to say when asked whether his staff could have done more:
…quite honestly during the lame duck session we have staff members leaving for other offices. I mean, you have that churn. There’s a reason they call it a lame duck. So when we got it, this was really right before the election, right during the lame duck, certainly from my standpoint I was all we’d won the election, setting up the committee from really zero staff members to filling out a full committee so that we actually have the capability now of being that go-to committee where whistleblowers have confidence they can come.
“Ron Johnson should be ashamed of his attempts to mislead his constituents about his inaction on Tomah VA,” said Sadie Weiner, DSCC National Press Secretary. “Johnson has come up with every excuse in the book short of ‘the dog ate my homework,’ but Wisconsin veterans don’t need excuses, they need answers and action. Ron Johnson ought to stop dodging responsibility and apologize for letting VA whistleblower complaints die in a ‘congressional black hole.’”
