wilkie, robert v a
MERRI OK
yikes, neo-confed
mma
07/22/25
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aye a pirate yes a pirate! arrhh!
https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/dan-crenshaw/
VA sec metoo
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Wilkie served from July 2018 to January 2021 as the most senior official at VA, replacing Trump’s first secretary for the department, Dr. David Shulkin. He also served as acting secretary for two months prior to his Senate confirmation.
As secretary, he oversaw the initial stages of the department’s electronic health records overhaul and the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic within the VA health care system.
Wilkie courted controversy late in his term after a VA inspector general report criticized his mishandling of a sexual assault allegation against a veteran visiting the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center.
The report detailed how Wilkie directed an investigation into the victim, a Democratic congressional aide, and worked behind the scenes to discredit her. The inspector general labeled his actions “unprofessional” but did not find any criminal wrongdoing.
Still, more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress and 20 veterans groups — including the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion — publicly called for Wilkie’s resignation or firing. Neither happened, and he left office after Trump’s term expired.
Since then, Wilkie has worked as a military and veterans expert at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank launched by former Trump appointees in 2021.
As head of the defense transition efforts, Wilkie will lead Trump’s search for a new defense secretary, as well as other senior civilian leadership posts within the military.
Republicans are expected to hold a majority in the Senate next year, easing the path to confirmation for those picks.
About Leo Shane III
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
GGL 7 25
[
U.S. Department of Defense (.gov)
https://www.defense.gov › About › Biography › Article](https://www.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/1394799/robert-wilkie/)
Robert Wilkie served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. Mr. Wilkie was the principal advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary ...
[### The Honorable Robert Wilkie | Team
America First Policy Institute
https://www.americafirstpolicy.com › team › the-honor...](https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/team/the-honorable-robert-wilkie)
Wilkie was nominated by President Donald J. Trump to serve as the tenth Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA). He was confirmed by the United States Senate ...
[### Robert Wilkie
Virginia Tech National Security Institute
https://nationalsecurity.vt.edu › personnel-directory › w...](https://nationalsecurity.vt.edu/personnel-directory/wilkie-robert.html)
Robert Wilkie, Secretary of Veterans Affairs 2018-2021; Under Secretary of Defense 2017-2018; Special Assistant to President George W. Bush for National ...
[### Secretary Robert Wilkie
Vandenberg Coalition
https://vandenbergcoalition.org › experts › secretary-ro...](https://vandenbergcoalition.org/experts/secretary-robert-wilkie/)
The Honorable Robert Wilkie was nominated by President Trump to serve as the tenth Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
[### Secretary Robert Wilkie (@SecWilkie) / X
X · SecWilkie
6.9K+ followers](https://x.com/secwilkie?lang=en)
This is the archived account of former US Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie (2018-2021).
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https://www.laprogressive.com/traitor-at-the-va/
no lnx
Traitor at the VA
As the History Channel’s recent documentary Grant reminds us powerfully of what a real General Officer looks like and what that real General stood for, we are compelled to point an accusing finger at the Confederate fan and sympathizer who sits at the head of the nation’s Department of Veterans Affairs.
Robert Wilkie is an unabashed fan of the ultimate traitor and president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, who led the rebel effort to compel by military force the continuance of human slavery as a principal part of the U.S. economy and to dismember the Union created by Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Madison and others at the end of the 18th Century. In fact, it’s reasonable to assert from Wilkie’s speeches to pro-Confederate groups that he not only cherishes the memory of Davis, he puts a positive spin to what Davis represented and what his treason personified.
It’s reasonable to assert from Wilkie’s speeches to pro-Confederate groups that he not only cherishes the memory of Davis, he puts a positive spin to what Davis represented and what his treason personified.
Here is what the leader of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), Mikey Weinstein, had to say recently about Wilkie after the VA Secretary refused to remove Nazi swastikas from grave markers in two U.S. national cemeteries:
He is a well-known and documented advocate of the Civil War Confederacy who has praised Confederate President Jefferson Davis as a ‘martyr’ and an ‘exceptional man in an exceptional age’ while also condemning, in the most ignoble and vicious terms, the abolitionists who opposed slavery as ‘radical’, ‘mendacious’ and ‘enemies of liberty’….during Wilkie’s U.S. Senate confirmation hearings, he deliberately spewed inaccurate information to U.S. Senators as to how long it had been since he last spoke to his beloved pro-Confederate gatherings, thus, making it seem as though it had been a much longer time than it actually had been.
Further, he failed to disclose his membership in the Confederate Memorial Committee and omitted his event speeches from responses asking for the details on them. Wilkie publicly called Civil War-era civil rights activists laboring to abolish slavery the names that clearly apply, instead, to him. It is VA Secretary Robert Wilkie who is “radical” (in his support of the Nazis) and is likewise ‘mendacious’ as to the falsehoods and deceptions he has delivered to the United States Congress and, thus, the American people.
Our first questions should be, why is this man, a man who supports Nazi symbology in U.S. National Cemeteries, our Veterans Affairs secretary? (Indeed, why has he been in and around the US government or its private contractors for some time now, starting many years ago?) Who put him at the helm of the VA and why? What might his agenda be while in the position? And our last question should be: when are we going to get rid of him?
The answer to the first, second, and third questions is identical: because Donald J. Trump and his base and the Republicans in Congress, wanted Wilkie in that position to titillate and appease the fundamentalist “Christians” who help compose the President’s alleged base. Many of these rabid, fundamentalist evangelicals are Confederate sympathizers at best and rabid racists at worse, or both. Trump also put Wilkie in place to effect his agenda to privatize veterans care, further bastardizing essential public functions and increasing the obscene profits of private interests bent on taking over as many government functions as possible, from prisons, to schools, to the waging of war.
Like Grant, the man who made him a brigadier general on what most thought was his death bed after he was grievously wounded at Petersburg, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a real soldier. Leading his 20th Maine Regiment at the battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, his fame was seared into the annals of U.S. history. Years later, at the ceremony on October 3, 1889 at the Gettysburg town courthouse to dedicate all the monuments there set up to the regiments of Maine, Chamberlain spoke to members from all those regiments. Chamberlain said:
There is a phrase abroad…which distorts and falsifies history: ‘The War Between the States”. There are here no states outside of the Union. Resolving themselves outside of it does not release them. Even were they successful in intrenching themselves in this attitude, they would only relapse into territories of the United States. Indeed, several of the States so resolving were never in their own right either States or Colonies; but their territories were purchased by the common treasury of the Union, and were admitted as States out of its grace and generosity….There was no war between the States. It was a war in the name of certain States to destroy the political existence of the United States.
And Robert Wilkie’s hero, Jefferson Davis, was in charge of that war. As the documentary Grant depicts, when General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House tells General Grant that he will have to pass the articles of surrender to his President for approval, Grant laconically responds: “There is only one president in this country now.”
Unfortunately, President Trump and Veterans Department Secretary Wilkie do not seem to be aware of that reality. Indeed, Trump seems intent on dealing with that reality by trying to eliminate the considerable portion of the United States that triumphed in the U.S. Civil War. He seems incapable of being anything but the new Jeff Davis, the president of the traitors among us, with Wilkie as one of his right-hand men.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
The answer to our final question above is of course when we, all of us citizens of the United States, un-elect Donald Trump.
Lawrence Wilkerson
Lawrence Wilkerson (Colonel, U.S. Army – retired), Member of the Advisory Board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-white-house-asked-va-secretary-to-run-pentagon-if-president-fires-dods-esper/
as Donald Trump scrambles to recover from reports that he disparaged fallen U.S. soldiers, there are new claims that the president might shakeup leadership at the Pentagon.
The president has reportedly talked to Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie about becoming the new defense secretary if he fires Mark Esper, according to NBC News.But his allies are warning him not to act before the election.
“Two senior administration officials said Trump discussed the position directly with Wilkie at the White House last month. Two other senior administration officials said Wilkie had senior-level discussions with the White House about becoming Trump’s next defense secretary,” NBC News reported on Monday.
The White House, Pentagon, and Veterans Affairs Department all declined to comment to NBC – and one official anonymously pushed back on the report, saying “There are no plans to replace Secretary Esper."
but the Wall Street Journal has previously reported in June that Trump nearly fired Esper for not for backing the idea of using military troops to quell protests. “Trump was furious,” the Journal said.
Now, NBC News reports that Trump’s allies inside and outside the White House are urging him to stick with Esper until the November 3 election. They warn that ousting the defense secretary would create turmoil.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/white-house-officials-fear-turmoil-as-trump-considers-ousting-pentagon-chief-ahead-of-november-election-report/
pdnt Trump is reportedly plotting yet another major shakeup to his cabinet.
Sources tell NBC News that Trump is intent on replacing Defense Secretary Mark Esper and potentially replacing him with Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie.
There have been rumblings for months that Trump is unhappy with his Pentagon chief, whomDefense Department officials reportedly refer to as “Yesper” due to his unwillingness to stand up to the president
“Trump has told aides for months that he is unhappy with Esper and wants to fire him,” reports NBC News. “Trump’s allies inside and outside the White House have told him that shaking up leadership at the Pentagon before the Nov. 3 election would create turmoil in his administration during the closing weeks of the campaign. It would come at a time when the president is planning to reduce the number of U.S. forces in hot spots such as Iraq and Afghanistan.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/sons-of-confederate-veterans-member-turned-va-secretary-tells-congress-he-wont-remove-headstones-engraved-with-swastikas/}:
Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Robert Wilkie has refused to remove three headstones engraved with swastikas at the graves of German prisoners of war in national cemeteries in San Antonio and Utah, offering instead to make adjustments that put the markers in “historical context.”
“I happen to think that making sure that when people visit our cemeteries they are educated and informed of the horror is an incredibly important thing to do,” Wilkie testified to the House Military Construction-VA Appropriations subcommittee.
“Erasing these headstones removes them from memory,” he added. “And as we continue to study the Holocaust, the last thing any Holocaust scholar wants to do is erase that memory.”
Subcommittee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., pushed back.
'The Nazi swastika is prohibited in Germany from being displayed, because it is not seen as a reminder to prevent the hatred that it spawned,” she said. “It is seen as something to be snuffed out.”
Wilkie responded that he instead wanted to work with lawmakers to put the anti-Semitic iconography in proper “historical context.”
German law bars the public display of swastikas, and all known monuments which featured the Nazi symbol have been removed or replaced. The headstones in all three U.S. cemeteries feature a swastika circumscribed in an Iron Cross, a medal of valor. Those at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio also bear a phrase honoring Adolf Hitler.
Wasserman Schulz asked Wilkie to testify last week after a military religious freedom watchdog called on the VA to remove the headstones from the prisoner-of-war “Section Z” in Fort Sam, originally reported in Salon.
“The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) condemns in the harshest terms possible the disgusting, disingenuous and dishonest testimony of VA Secretary Robert Wilkie before members of the United States Congress yesterday regarding the sordid matter of Nazi-adorned headstones at the gravesites of the three German POWs from World War II who are buried at two VA National Cemeteries,” MRFF chair Mikey Weinstein, a Jewish Air Force vet and activist, told Salon in an email Friday.
The VA routinely changes out headstones in response to appropriate requests, such as for typographical errors. The military also keeps an official registry of available emblems of belief for placement on government headstones and markers. Neither the Iron Cross nor the swastika appear on the list.
Still, VA officials have claimed that U.S. law prevents them from removing the stones.
Les A. Melnyk, head of public affairs and outreach at the National Cemetery Administration, told Salon in an email that the Trump administration “will continue to preserve these headstones.”
“The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 assigns stewardship responsibilities to federal agencies, including VA and Army, to protect historic resources, including those that recognize divisive historical figures or events. For this reason, VA will continue to preserve these headstones, like every past administration has,” he wrote.
Melnyk would not say whether he knew of any requests filed with past administrations, and a follow-up investigation by Salon could not uncover any.
The VA said it was also obliged to follow international laws guaranteeing enemy combatants burials with full honors.
Norman Rosenshein, an Army vet and former national commander of the Jewish War Veterans of the USA, suggested to The Wall Street Journal that the VA swap out the headstones and preserve them in storage.
Weinstein pointed to what he sees as an ideological through-line in Wilkie.
“Let’s be quite clear who this Robert Wilkie person is: Wilkie’s support of these Nazi headstone is not at all surprising,” he said in an email. “He is a well known and documented advocate of the Civil War Confederacy who has praised Confederate President Jefferson Davis as a ‘martyr’ and an ‘exceptional man in an exceptional age’ while also condemning, in the most ignoble and vicious terms, the abolitionists who opposed slavery as ‘radical,’ ‘mendacious’ and ‘enemies of liberty.'”
The Washington Post reported ahead of Wilkie’s July 2018 Senate confirmation hearings that Wilkie had been a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Wilkie was confirmed anyway.
Then in 2019, CNN reported that, in violation of Senate rules, Wilkie had failed to disclose a speech he gave in 2009 to a chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a 1995 address in which he praised former Confederate President Jefferson Davis at the U.S. Capitol.
Wasserman Schultz, who will author the VA’s funding bill for the next year, told Wilkie in his hearing Thursday that “this is going to be dealt with one way or another.”
She called on him to follow an investigatory process made available in the National Preservation Act, which would determine whether removal would be inappropriate.
Wilkie argued that would mean he would have to engage in “a very long process” but tried to assure the chairwoman that a compromise could still be reached.
“I don’t think we’re that far off, because I do think that putting those in context in the cemeteries is the way forward,” he said.
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VA chief Robert Wilkie called a House policy advisor’s assault allegation “unsubstantiated” even though an independent investigation found it was not.
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