Documents Show the VA Debacle Began Under George W. Bush

The Bush administration was aware of the backlogs and secret waiting lists but failed to fix the problem.

—By Mariah Blake | Fri May 30, 2014 6:00 AM EDT

President Barack Obama and his administration have come under fire following a string of revelations about the huge backlogs of patients at Department of Veterans Affairs clinics and the underhanded tactics many of them used to hide the long wait times for medical care. As of Thursday evening, more than 100 lawmakers were calling on Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki to step down. But according to VA inspector general reports and other documents that have gone overlooked in the current firestorm, federal officials knew about the scheme at the heart of the scandal—falsifying VA records to cover up treatment delays—years before Obama became president. VA officials first learned of the problems in 2005, when George W. Bush was entering his second term, and the problems went unfixed for the duration of his presidency.