About yesterday’s Senate “shadow hearing”
As I noted previously, I was invited to testify at a “shadow hearing” held by the Democrats on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, about the firings happening at VA.
You can watch a video of the hearing here (Twitter link, sorry), or in my Google Drive, at least until I decide it’s taking up too much space there and delete it. It’s worth listening to the whole video (you can turn up the playback speed if you want 😉), but specifically with regards to my testimony:
- All of the witnesses including me are introduced starting at 12:00.
- My prepared remarks start at 23:44.
- I answer some good questions from Senator Elizabeth Warren starting at 1:02:57 (I believe this was my most consequential testimony) and more questions immediately after that from Senator Angus King.
- I answer a question from Senator Van Hollen after his speech starting at 1:22:34.
It is worth noting that I spoke with a staffer from Senator Warren’s office at their request the day before the hearing so they could give me a heads-up about what Senator Warren was going to be asking me about, so I was not… entirely unprepared to take a swing at the softball she threw at me.
The prepared remarks I delivered are below.
Planned Testimony of Jonathan Kamens
Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Good afternoon, Ranking Member Blumenthal and other distinguished members of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.Thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding the reckless firing of critical VA staff by the Trump administration.
In 2023, shortly after my arrival at the U.S. Digital Service, I was detailed to VA. At VA I served as information security advisor to the Chief Technology Officer and information security lead for VA.gov, the mission-critical online portal for all benefits and services provided to American veterans. Before my arrival, that position had been unfilled for nearly a year due to lack of qualified candidates. I remained in that role for a year and a half, until I was fired by DOGE on February 14.
My firing leaves the Office of the CTO without adequate information security expertise, a gap which is unlikely to be remedied due to DOGE’s ongoing crusade to slash the federal workforce and contractors and Secretary Collins’s plan to aggressively cut VA staffing.
VA.gov processes a dizzying array of veterans’ extremely personal information, including sensitive medical, financial, and demographic data. These types of data are continuously sought out by threat actors looking to defraud or extort victims or bombard them with targeted disinformation. While I am confident that VA OCTO staff and contractors will do everything they can to protect these data, at current staffing and funding levels they are simply stretched too thin, putting veterans’ data, and thus the veterans themselves, at risk. Also, I would be remiss not to mention the very real risk of misuse of the data by the Trump administration itself.
Most VA employees fired by the Trump administration were ostensibly terminated for performance reasons. This, however, was a lie, easily demonstrated by the fact that most of them had no documented performance issues. I and my fired USDS colleagues were told something different: that our services were no longer required due to a restructuring of USDS. However, this, too, was obviously a lie, given that right now, as I speak to you, the DOGE website is advertising open positions within USDS for exactly the types of expert they fired from USDS less than two months ago. I believe that in fact many of us were illegally fired due to our political views, and that the people being hired to replace us are illegally being vetted for loyalty to the Trump administration.
I left behind higher income in the private sector to lead information security for VA.gov, because I believe in public service and I want to do meaningful, mission-driven work that helps real people in real ways. Prior to the 2024 election I expected to spend the rest of my career at VA, serving the American people. I am saddened and dismayed that many dedicated public servants are being fired at a time when the American people need more, not less, from their government.
Thank you again for this opportunity to tell my story. I look forward to answering your questions.
#AngusKing #ChristopherVanHollen #DOGE #DonaldTrump #ElizabethWarren #ElonMusk #USSenate #VA
AnneTheWriter
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