Trump’s IG pick at the VA is ‘watering down’ oversight, some employees allege

Inspectors general lead watchdog offices that perform independent oversight of federal agencies. The Senate last July confirmed, along party lines, Cheryl Mason as IG of the Veterans Affairs Department. She previously served as chair of the Board of Veterans Appeals during President Donald Trump’s first term and as a senior adviser to VA Secretary Doug Collins.

During her tenure at the helm of the VA’s OIG, Mason has overseen significant staff cuts and watered down the office’s oversight work, according to some employees, who argue that services for veterans are less effective and efficient as a result. 

“We all believe in this mission of the VA OIG to ensure that veterans are cared for, and they are being left out of all of these decisions that are being made. That's the bottom-line impact — it's the veteran,” said one employee. “It’s just sad. I work with a bunch of very depressed, demoralized coworkers right now.”  

“We don't have the institutional knowledge”

Since the Trump administration began downsizing the civil service at the start of 2025, the VA OIG has lost about 20% of its employees, according to federal workforce data, bringing the number of staffers down to fewer than 950. 

Two VA OIG staffers, who preferred to be unnamed due to fears of retaliation, both said the agency has backfilled some positions. Still, they shared that more experienced employees are struggling to balance workloads while also training new auditors and investigators. 

“We don't have the infrastructure, we don't have the institutional knowledge and we don't have the programs we used to have in the past when we had [more] staff,” one of the employees said. “So it just becomes burdensome on the team members. I'm asking my staff ‘Hey, will you spend this time and train this [new person]’ while they're trying to do their inspection work. It’s slowing things down, but the expectations still remain that things need to be done timely.” 

Another point of contention is that some of the recently hired staffers are permitted to work remotely, while several existing staffers relocated far distances in order to comply with the president’s return-to-office directive for the federal workforce. 

The staff cuts appear to have taken a toll: the OIG issued 75% fewer audit reports in the first half of fiscal 2026 than its 2020-2024 average, according to an analysis by the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit. 

Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget for the VA calls for a 4% reduction in the OIG’s funding while seeking to boost the department’s appropriation by more than 8%. During a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing with Collins in May, Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said that he felt the VA OIG’s proposed funding level was too low. 

“I hope we can make certain that the IG at the VA is adequately funded to provide oversight, audit, hotline and investigative work,” he said. “And the reduction — the less funding — that's in the budget request seems to me to be damaging to that possibility.” 

In response, the secretary said: “We feel like [the OIG] can do everything we need to [with that funding], but that was a number that was also agreed to by [Mason] as well.” 

Michael Missal, a former VA IG who was removed by the president last January in a mass firing of the agency watchdogs, warned in an interview with Government Executive that a budget cut would likely equate to fewer auditors and investigators. 

“A primary job of the IG is to make sure that money is being spent effectively and efficiently. You're trying to identify fraud, and the larger the [VA’s] budget, the more risk there is of fraud,” he said. “I would think it's a relatively smart investment to increase the IG budget, not decrease it.” 

The Trump administration has prioritized combating fraud in federal programs. 

“She's not going to let us say this, even if it's true” 

During her confirmation hearing to become IG, Mason insisted that she does not have a “close” relationship with Collins. 

But The Washington Sun reported in August that Mason regularly brings up her connection to the secretary, eliminated a certain type of alert that publicizes major issues in the VA at his urging and has edited oversight reports to avoid highlighting problems associated with staffing shortages. The department under Collins has sought to restrict hiring. 

One of the OIG employees said that Mason has created a “chilling effect” across the agency. 

“We look at things like, ‘Can we say this or is this even worth doing the work?’ because the IG is not going to let this out. Her interference with our work, that's the effect of it,” the employee said. “Now the question is, ‘Is this juice even worth the squeeze?’ because she's not going to let us say this, even if it's true.” 

Mason told The Sun that she axed OIG preliminary alerts because they were “burdensome and not impactful,” but the OIG employee countered that they are “a very common technique used in the quality and safety realm.” 

“The reason we did the [preliminary result advisory memorandums] and developed that was so we could then send it out to [the Veterans Health Administration] and say, ‘Hey VHA, we found this issue at this one facility. Now this could be a one-off, and that's great if it is, but it could be a vulnerability that exists in other places. We're not saying that you need to do any formal actions or develop an action plan, but you might want to just put it out to other facilities and ask some questions,’” they said. 

Likewise, the other OIG employee said they’ve been instructed to not make staffing issues “front and center” in reports. 

“It's kind of like a word of mouth through the chain of command,” they said. “Sometimes it's from the supervisor, sometimes it's from the supervisor's supervisor. They're like, ‘the IG does not want this. The IG wants this.’”   

Mason told The Sun that "her office was waiting for a clearer outline on the department’s workforce goals before raising any concerns about staffing cuts." The IG added that: “It’s not about ‘gotcha’ with the department."  

Nevertheless, both employees said that the public can still trust the objectivity of the VA OIG’s work, albeit with caveats. 

“The work is still happening. Has it been watered down a little bit? Yes. But I do feel like the integrity of the work remains,” one argued, while the other added, “I would maybe question: Are the reports coming out painting a more positive picture of things at VA than maybe things really are?” 

“You're ultimately hurting the agency”

Beyond her policy directives and oversight rollbacks, employees say Mason’s distinct leadership style and personal conduct have further contributed to friction within the agency.

The employees said that Mason frequently wears a badge, such as in this video where she recites Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud pledge, which has a focus on “illegal aliens.” 

One of the OIG employees said that Mason wore the badge at a training. 

“That was the talk. Everybody was like ‘Oh, did you see her badge?’” they recalled. “It’s unusual to see, at least the VA IG, wearing a badge.” 

They also said that Mason refers to herself as a chief law enforcement officer of the VA, including in her July Fourth video message to the OIG. 

“I work with law enforcement officers in the agency, and it is very disrespectful to them because they've had the training and they've risked their lives,” the other employee said. “It is a slap in the face to those individuals to have her present this way.”  

Missal, the former VA IG, noted that the department has a law enforcement division, which protects VA medical centers and other facilities. 

“I don't think anybody thinks an inspector general is a chief law enforcement officer of any agency because Congress set them up to be independent of the agency — not part of the agency,” he said. 

In its report, The Sun also found that Mason held up the OIG’s relocation for months in order to ensure that she got a private bathroom at the new office and commissioned her own flag. 

In response to several questions about the issues raised by employees in this article — including the impacts of the staff cuts, Mason's influence on what information is included in reports and her use of a law enforcement title — a spokesperson said that the VA OIG does not have a comment. 

Mason’s appointment is part of a broader trend of the president installing individuals who previously worked in his administration as agency IGs. The White House last year also blocked funding for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency — a central watchdog group, which Mason was elected chair of in March  — but reversed following pushback from some Senate Republicans. 

Missal said he is worried that more partisan IGs will be less likely to tackle “tough issues” in their oversight work. 

“If you're afraid of being critical of some of the programs because of partisanship, then you're ultimately hurting the agency,” he said. “You're hurting the people the agency benefits, which, in this case, is veterans.”