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The Shadow Rulers of the VA
How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administrations veterans policies.
by Isaac Arnsdorf Aug. 7, 6:29 p.m. EDT
Last February, shortly after Peter ORourke became chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs, he received an email from Bruce Moskowitz with his input on a new mental health initiative for the VA. Received, ORourke replied. I will begin a project plan and develop a timeline for action.
ORourke treated the email as an order, but Moskowitz is not his boss. In fact, he is not even a government official. Moskowitz is a Palm Beach doctor who helps wealthy people obtain high-service concierge medical care.
More to the point, he is one-third of an informal council that is exerting sweeping influence on the VA from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trumps private club in Palm Beach, Florida. The troika is led by Ike Perlmutter, the reclusive chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who is a longtime acquaintance of President Trumps. The third member is a lawyer named Marc Sherman. None of them has ever served in the U.S. military or government.
Yet from a thousand miles away, they have leaned on VA officials and steered policies affecting millions of Americans. They have remained hidden except to a few VA insiders, who have come to call them the Mar-a-Lago Crowd.
more...
https://www.propublica.org/article/ike-perlmutter-bruce-moskowitz-marc-sherman-shadow-rulers-of-the-va
2naSalit
(86,741 posts)babylonsister
(171,079 posts)done with the approval of dt. Sounds too, too fishy.
2naSalit
(86,741 posts)HipChick
(25,485 posts)Not getting enough attention...
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)to what investigative journalists and VA and healthcare insiders have been reporting all along.
This is q quick grab from Politico in March 2017, just short of 2 months from inauguration day. Some may remember Trump humiliating in front of the press and us his newly appointed VA director by taunting him on not being invited and having no part in this group's decisions.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-veterans-affair-meeting-doesnt-happen-236221
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,426 posts)Outrages never end in this (mis-)Administration. Even in George W. Bush's (mis-)Administration, it wasn't something crazy literally every.single.day.