Just like Hillary Clinton – whose "email problems just came roaring back" as FBI documents allege that Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy offered a "quid pro quo" to hide her reckless conduct, Senator Russ Feingold is under fire as a new report reveals that he was notified about veteran abuse at the Tomah VA six years before the 2014 death of a Marine.
Per an email obtained by Wisconsin Watchdog, a Tomah VA patient sought Senator Feingold’s help after he was allegedly abused by David Houlihan – the disgraced "Candy Man" doctor, in 2008.
A member of the nursing team waited to see if anything came from the letter to Senator Feingold for help.
"Apparently nothing ever did" as a veteran’s plea was met by a career politician’s inaction.
The newly surfaced 2008 email joins the "hand delivered" 2009 memo as proof that Senator Feingold was part of the very problem that Ron Johnson has been working to combat as Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Given the damning revelations in the email, it’s clear why Senator Feingold refuses to release his State Department records amid allegations that he violated federal law.
Emails say Tomah VA patient reached out to Feingold, Kind, in 2008 about abuse
Wisconsin Watchdog
By M.D. Kittle
October 18, 2016
A 2008 email obtained by Wisconsin Watchdog states former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold was notified of alleged abuse of a psychiatric patient at the hands of the chief of staff of the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
The hospital became known as “Candyland” by patients and staff for its reputation of overprescribing painkillers.
“By the way he (the patient) has told me he sent a letter to (U.S. Rep.) Ron Kind and (then-U.S. Sen.) Russ Feingold requesting their help,” wrote a member of the Tomah nursing team in March 2008 to Lin Ellinghuysen, a representative of the VA hospital’s local union.
Feingold and Kind have been accused of not acting on myriad allegations of misconduct at the medical center.
Ellinghuysen, now president of the local chapter of American Federation of Government Employees, originally tried to alert congressional Democrats about the over-prescription of opiates at Tomah as early as 2009, according to memos obtained last year by USA Today. The union rep’s warnings came five years before the death of a 35-year-old Marine Jason Simcakoski, who died at the facility after receiving a fatal cocktail of prescription drugs.
Ellinghuysen originally said she “hand-delivered” memos to Kind and Feingold, both Democrats, in 2009, but later walked back those statements. Critics say she downplayed her original statements after getting pressure from the AFGE headquarters, which apparently heard an earful from Feingold’s people.
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Several congressional inquiries and federal investigations found an array of critical issues at the VA hospital.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, the incumbent Feingold is campaigning to unseat in next month’s election, published its findings in late May in a report titled “The Systemic Failures and Preventable Tragedies at the Tomah VA Medication Center” .
The report lays out a long list of misconduct, abuse, and retaliation charges over several years, and nearly as many red flags that critics say, had they been heeded, could have saved lives.
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The email to Ellinghuysen followed an incident in which Dr. David Houlihan, the hospital’s chief of staff at the time, is accused by multiple sources of verbally abusing a psychiatric patient. Houlihan was fired in 2015 months after investigative news stories reported that the doctor was referred to by patients and staff as the “Candy Man” for his alleged practices of over-prescribing painkillers.
“Dr. Houlihan yelled at the patient; got in the patient’s face; and forcefully several times knocked his leg against the patient’s knee. This was a psych patient, debilitated, and sitting in a wheelchair! …,” Ellinghuysen wrote in a follow-up email to federal investigators.
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“Houlihan was out of line with the veteran,” the staff member wrote in the partially redacted email. Houlihan was face to face with the veteran in a verbal altercation … By the way he (the patient) has told me he sent a letter to Ron Kind and Russ Feingold requesting their help. I would not tell Houlihan or (name redacted) and see if anything comes from it.”
Apparently nothing ever did.
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… Ellinghuysen suggests Feingold, Kind and former U.S. Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, knew as early as summer 2008 that deaths were occurring due to the over prescription of opiates and painkillers in Tomah VA Hospital.
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