The former leader of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Aurora-based suicide prevention center will not be taking a temporary assignment in the VA’s national office amid an internal investigation into toxic workplace concerns.
Less than two weeks after The Denver Post outlined “emotional, mental and psychological abuse” inside the Rocky Mountain Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, the VA reassigned the director, Dr. Lisa Brenner, to a less prominent position.
The department initially had said Brenner would assume the role of deputy director in the VA’s national office for suicide prevention while the investigation played out.
Following publication of The Post’s reporting, however, a VA spokesperson said she instead would be detailed in a “non-supervisory capacity” to the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, working in a task group for suicide prevention.
Brenner’s attorney, David Schleicher, in a statement Friday, said Brenner is “taking this matter very seriously, and is actively encouraging and fully cooperating with any comprehensive investigation taking place — operating with complete authenticity and transparency.”
“Lisa and I are confident the investigation will be concluded expeditiously, as we expect the conclusion to find the allegations unsubstantiated, as Lisa is innocent of these claims,” he said.
In March, a union representing workers from the MIRECC — as the suicide prevention center is called — sent a report to VA leaders, outlining what they called a troubling trend of workplace intimidation, retaliation and a culture of fear. The union called for a third-party investigation into Brenner, a nationally renowned research psychologist and expert on suicidology.
That investigation, union members say, never happened.
But after The Post sent a list of detailed questions to the VA, the federal agency said it would be looking into the union’s claims and reassigned Brenner.
U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat and former Army ranger, last week demanded the VA answer questions about the allegations from the Eastern Colorado system, including those inside the MIRECC.
Crow also demanded a thorough accounting of an alleged prosthetics order deletion scheme at the Aurora VA, outlined by The Post last month. That reporting found the head of the Eastern Colorado prosthetics department was instructing employees to delete orders for hearing aids, artificial limbs and other devices in order to avoid the appearance of a backlog.
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