mr. robert mckenrick, director of the los angeles regional office, ms. mberly graves, director of the st. paul regional officer, mr. antoine waller, director of the baltimore regional office, ms. linda halliday with the v.a.'s office of inspector general. i also invited former undersecretary hickey to testify tonight as a private citizen as her activities were heavily featured in the report. however, she did not respond to my request. i would ask the witnesses to please stand and raise your right hand so that we can swear you in more your testimony. for your testimony. do you solemnly swear under pen penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you. you may be seated. let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. before we start, i want to read rule 3e of the committee's rules whereby it states each witness who is to appear before the committee or a subcommittee shall file with the clerk of the committee at least 48 hours in advance of his or her appe

mr. mckenrick.ou're presently at the los angeles va facility? where are you presently? >> i am. >> uh-huh. i visit that facility. it's -- is that the -- you're the top person at that particular position? >> for the department of veterans affairs, congresswoman brown, i am the director of the los angeles regional office in that office. >> okay. that is very challenging position, but also i would think a very interesting position in that you have an opportunity to work with a very challenging community that need a lot of help and assistance. did you after doing your research, did you decide that you want to take that position? >> i found that the position was very challenging, and i was confused in the process of what was being offered for me to go. and my position was that if i was to go, i would have to be direct reassigned and that the agency would tell me that i was the one that had to go, the best candidate to go at that time. there was no one else that could do that mission. i was committed to t

mr. mckenrick in the philadelphia office? p >> if i had been making that decision i probably would not have put mack in philadelphia as his first assignment. >> because in his fy-2013 performance evaluation mr. - f mckenrick's reviewing officer, miss reubens, herself wrote and i quote, his leadership through this fiscal year has resulted ip multiple successes and a steady increase in production and he quality in the last quarter. and i fully expect mr. mckenrick's leadership to resulu in continued improvements during the coming year.im close quote.p >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. pummill, to the best of youo knowledge, has any of the va employees mentioned in the ha report been interviewed or questioned by federal agents ina regards to the findings in the report? ? >> i have no knowledge. >> no knowledge of that. okay. can you tell me a little bit e more about -- i know we suspended the relocation program, and you mentioned some of the things.ag but could you tell me again whao specifically has been done within the va to coun

mr. robert mckenrick, mr. antoine waller. as we learned in our last hearing, the i gchg's report la out the alleged be a bus of v.a.'s's location expense appermanent change of station programs costing hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. and how miss rubens and miss graves apparently inappropriately used their positions of thooauthority to p their own personal and financial benefit ahead of veterans tax pace and their subordinates. as the saying goegoes, a picturs worth 1,000 words. so let me start with a map. you can look at the screen up here. initially miss graves and mr. waller discussed his potential transfer to philadelphia. those discussions are eventually shelved because mr. mckenrick is transferred from philadelphia r.o. director's job to become the lanos angeles r.o. director. then miss rubens transfers from v.a. headquarters here in d.c. to fill the now vacant philly r.o. job and receives about $274,000 this relocation assistance. mr. waller is subsequently transferred from the st. paul r.o. director

mr. mckenrick, you would not have come if somebody said don't come. i think he would have been here. nd we had to subpoena you in order to get you to come here. mr. pummill, you obviously were subpoenaed because ms. hickey left her position, and i suspect that we may invite her to appear before us at a later date, but with that if there are no further questions, we are now in recess. [inaudible conversations] >> the veterans day national ceremony will be held wednesday at arlington national cemetery. assembly begins at 11 a.m. eastern with a replay of the two of the unknown soldier followed by a national observance program hosted by the department of veterans affairs and the mobile amphitheater. see the entire event live on c-span. >> tonight on the communicator's will discuss cybersecurity threats facing the u.s. and other countries. james lewis wrote the senate of the national states is guest and thoughts are with the u.s. is doing to avoid attacks by china and russia. also cybersecurity legislation passed by the house and senate are kind of program he is joined by tim starks, cyber

mr. mckenrick. i think we need to look at the underlying processes, the data there, because it was very difficult to determine, did someone have an agenda and want us to come to some conclusion? we did much more work than we had to do to make sure we got the message right. the philadelphia branch had problems in its management center, its compensation service center. are everywhere we looked we had problems. so i do take some offense with saying that i needed to talk to mr. mckenrick who was no longer there while the va team was there. . the te the team entered the philadelphia office and by that time mr. mckenrick was probably already in l.a. i think looking at the evidence, looking at the process and doing interviews of all the people that are doing the work in the trenches was more than enough to provide an accurate picture of the philadelphia varo. >> i just want to say that this committee went to philadelphia and we had a hearing there and in fact the hearing that we had on that issue, veterans

mr. mckenrick in that office?>> if i was making that decision i would not have put mack in philadelphia for the first assignment. >> because in his evaluation, his reviewing officer, ms. rubens, wrote and i quote, his leadership through the fiscal year resulted in multiple successes and a steady increase in production and quality in the last quarter and i fully expect his leadership to result in continued improvements during the coming here. >> mr. pommel, to the best of your knowledge, has any of the va employees mentioned in the report been interviewed or questions by the federal agencies in regard to the findings in the report? >> i have no knowledge of that. okay. >> can you tell me a little bit more about -- i know you suspended the relocation program. and you mentioned some of the things but could you tell me again what specifically had been done within the va to counteract the culture that seemed to allow this misuse of funds to happen? >> i had a long conversations actually again today with our deputy secr