thomas lynch, assistant undersecretary for health for critical operations and management, mr. wilgunn, or any other representive office of the general counsel, ms. joan mooney, assistant secretary for congressional legislative affairs, dr. ron mauer, mr. bobbing, congressional relation officer, or michael hough, congressional relations officer, or parties to or referenced in such emails and written correspondence. >> members, you have heard the motion, do i hear a second? motion's been moved and properly seconded. i will open the floor for the ranking member to make a statement and would ask if any other members have a statement that they be very, very brief because everybody has a very, very tight schedule this morning. i understand the ranking member is recognized. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i think we all can agree that quality, safe, accessible health care has always been a priority of this committee. i believe that has not changed today. we have over the past years asked the v.a. for information that has not been forthcoming. frustrations remain high among comm

thomas lynch couldn't answer questions like who's responsible? who did this? why is it happening?t was very frustrating for both sides. when he came out in the hallway i wanted to ask him a very specific question about this secret list and quite defensively, he told me, even after all this, there wasn't a secret list. listen. >> reporter: how can you, the current administration, which got us into this mess, get us out of it. >> if you just said it's been going on for five or ten years, i have not been part of that current administration, drew. i have been here a year and half. i think i have been able to see what the way forward is. i think we have developed in the last year and a half, tools we can use. i've acknowledged we need to ensure the integrity of 0 our system to use these tools accurately. we do have the tools and we do have the information we need to push forward and provide veterans with timely care. >> ashleigh, let's just take him at his word he's only been there a year and half and he personally doesn't know. certainly the secretary knew, everybody knew this was goi

thomas lynch, assistant undersecretary for health for critical operations and management, mr. wilgunn, or any other representive office of the general counsel, ms. joan mooney, assistant secretary for congressional legislative affairs, dr. ron mauer, mr. bobbing, congressional relation officer, or michael hough, congressional relations officer, or parties to or referenced in such emails and written correspondence. >> members, you have heard the motion, do i hear a second? motion's been moved and properly seconded. i will open the floor for the ranking member to make a statement and would ask if any other members have a statement that they be very, very brief because everybody has a very, very tight schedule this morning. i understand the ranking member is recognized. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i think we all can agree that quality, safe, accessible health care has always been a priority of this committee. i believe that has not changed today. we have over the past years asked the v.a. for information that has not been forthcoming. frustrations remain high among comm

thomas lynch the underassistant secretary said, we lost tight of the fact -- in trying to reach performance targets we lost sight of the fact we were supposed to care for veterans. he did not directly tie it to bonus, but we all know performance goals are tied to bonuses. there seems to be some link what they are getting monetarily and whether or not they have long or short wait times >> this isais a larger problem the president because it goes to the core of his presidency which is a question of competency in big government operations. he's brought us health care reform and you saw the incompetent health care website. he has made veterans care an important cornerstone of his presidency and you see the incompetence or malfeasance over at the v.a. this is a larger problem for the president what i think you heard john boehner talking about and what you will hear republicans talking about. and senators and democrats and republicans, senator blumenthal and mccain calling for an fbi criminal investigation into criminal allegations potentially. >> that's right. >> down the road. we're standing by

thomas lynch would not or actually says he could not say is that the performance measures were tied tos. many in congress believe that the awarding of these bonuses, money, is what is behind this. we may not learn about that until the final office of inspector general report later this summer. >> drew, stay there, i want to bring in congressman jeff miller, the house veteran affairs. mr. chairman, let me start with you. after the inspector general's preliminary report revealing disturbingly the practices at the v.a. how will that solve the problem at the v.a.? >> it will not solve the problem. i have said for a long time this is larger than one man. secretary shinseki has obviously lost the ability to lead his agency. nothing is going to change with the secretary being gone but that is still no reason to leave him in place. >> and in terms of who would replace the general at this point does it have to be somebody outside the v.a.? >> well, that is the president's decision. this is the choice the president is going to make. where you bring somebody that is going to shake up the system f

the committee wants thomas lynch, joan moody and michael huff to answer questions about the destruction of this fake wait list for patient care at the phoenix, arizona, va facility. here's the chairman. >> late last night i got a response back saying that they were not able to have the witnesses here in a 15-hour time limit. now, i get it. fifteen hours is pretty quick. but i don't think i need to remind members of this committee that this is life or death. >> reporter: the committee's really frustrated because these documents were due on monday, and by the chairman's account, 30 va staffers had nine days to pore through this document request, they produced 201 not very revealing e-mails. >> but what they're doing now, is they are selectively giving us the e-mails that they want us to have. >> reporter: added that last night the committee received a new tranche of 3,000 e-mails, but they arrived at 2:30 in the morning and, basically, the committee has not had time to review those e-mails as of yet. this is all occurring as two democrats now, john barrow and david scott of georgia, join

thomas lynch there, he said there were no wait lists.im what they referred to as interim work products. so the paper wait lists were not wait list, they were interim work products. that's some beautiful bureaucratic legalese. >> yeah. sounds like a funny way to change the verbiage on that. could this be a tipping point for president obama to call for the resignation of eric shinseki should he choose not to step down himself in the first place? the chorus of people on both sides of the aisle is getting much louder. the vfw also, but it's not just republicans, it's democrats now. for the first time we've had five senate democrats come forward as well and two senate democrat candidates. but we do have democratic congressman mike meshow, who will join us and gop congressman jeff miller at 8:45. they're going to be weighing in on all this. what a late night in washington, d.c certainly some firey comments. >> congressman has been sounding the alarm. among those democrats saying okay, general shinseki has to go, senator hagin, as well as mark

medical center located in arizona in which the secretary and the undersecretary for health and thomas lynch for clinical health operations and management, plus the general counsel or any other representative of the office of >> the chairman sent a letter, the response we have received yesterday was, in my view, was insufficient. this subpoena we've authorize today is limited in scope and it narrowly is constructed in order not to interfere or impede upon the ongoing investigation. at the end of the day, we all are waiting for the results of the investigation to be provided to us so that we can be in a position to take action and we need to fix the problems not only in phoenix but also across the va system. i was pleased to hear that the veterans administration will complete a nationwide access review to ensure that employees have a full understanding of the va policy and that they will conduct a face-to-face audit at all the clinics in every va medical center. and i understand that ms. kirkpatrick, the ranking member of the subcommittee oversight and investigation recently sent a letter cal

affairs medical center located in phoenix arizona, in which secretary should seki, robert , mr.l and thomas lynch will gone, general counsel, or any other representative of the , dr.e of general counsel ron mauer, can -- chairman of the congressional house leader. reference too a said e-mail or other written correspondence. >> members, you have for the motion. do i hear a second? >> motion has been moved and properly seconded. i will open the floor for the ranking member to make a statement. i would ask whether any other members would have a statement, be very brief, because everybody has a very tight schedule this morning. i understood -- the ranking member is recognized. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i think we can all agree that safe, accessible health care has always been a priority of this committee. i believe it is not changed today. over the past years, we have asked the v.a. for information that has not been forthcoming. frustrations remain high among committee members. the chairman sent a letter on may 1 2014 requesting the answer to two questions. the response we received yester

thomas lynch, assistant undersecretary for health for critical operations and management, mr. willgun, or any other representive office of the general counsel, ms. joan moony, assistant secretary for congressional legislative affairs, dr. ron mauer, mr. bobbing, congressional relation officer, or michael hough, congressional relations officer, or parties to or referenced in such emails and written correspondence. >> members, you have heard the motion, do i hear a second? motion's been moved and properly seconded. i will open the floor for the ranking member to make a statement and would ask if any other members have a statement that they be very, very brief because everybody has a very, very tight schedule this morning. i understand the ranking member is recognized. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i think we all can agree that quality, safe, accessible health care has always been a priority of this committee. i believe that has not changed today. we have over the past years asked the v.a. for information that has not been forthcoming. frustrations remain high among commi

thomas lynch of the v.a. being questioned by members of congress.sked specifically about the veterans waitlist. >> it had been conveyed to me secondhand by one of the members with us on the first visit that the center was using a document to record names of veterans who had been -- whose appointments canceled counseled -- so they could be rescheduled. after the patients and veterans have been rescheduled, the list was no longer required and it was destroyed. contain patient identifiable information. staff is telling me that it was described to them as a transitional document as people were transitioning from paper over to the electronic waiting list. i guess my question is, was the afterestroyed before or this committee requested a preservation order for all documents? impression that those lists were destroyed before you are preservation order. i was trying to explain before you asked me to be brief that this was occurring between october and november of 2012 and amid 2013. visit,time of my first we thought that the transfer was occurring to the el