The Institutionalization of Corruption at the VA

The ongoing ethical meltdown of the leadership at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs took a new, nasty turn for the worse on Friday, January 29, 2016, as Kimberly Graves, who was “demoted” along with fellow VA executive Diana Rubens after having been found to have abused their power by securing cushy new jobs with less responsibility for themselves by forcing out the people who previously held those jobs just had their “demotion” officially rescinded.
Sarah Westwood of the Washington Examiner reports:

A Department of Veterans Affairs official who was demoted after allegedly stealing thousands of taxpayer dollars from the agency was quietly reinstated to her position earlier this week.  Kimberly Graves, former head of a VA regional office in Minnesota, appeared before the Merit Systems Protection Board Wednesday to appeal the VA’s decision to strip her of her title in the wake of a scathing inspector general report. That report found Graves had pressured a colleague to leave his job so she could manipulate an employee relocation program and pocket nearly $130,000.

So how did Graves, who had previously plead the fifth in testimony before the U.S. Congress to avoid criminal charges, a legal strategy that would appear to have been successful as the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General Loretta Lynch declined to pursue any kind of prosecution in the matter, get such a favorable ruling?.......

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