The VA's diversity chief wanted to condemn the KKK and neo-Nazis after Charlottesville. A Trump appointee said no.

A few days after a group of white nationalists rallied violently against removing Confederate statues in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, the Department of Veterans Affairs chief diversity officer proposed issuing a statement emphasizing that the VA forcefully condemns such a "repugnant display of hate and bigotry by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan," The Washington Post reported Wednesday night, citing emails obtained by the group American Oversight via FOIA request. The VA's chief communications official, John Ullyot, shot her down.

Ullyot is a political appointee of President Trump and veteran of his presidential campaign, and Georgia Coffey was the deputy assistant secretary for diversity and inclusion. Trump had declined to condemn the white supremacist protesters and blamed "many sides" for the violence that ensued, peaking with a white supremacist killing a couterprotester with a car. David Shulkin, the VA secretary at the time, had appeared to break with Trump, saying on Aug. 16 that he was "outraged" by the actions of the white nationalists.

On Aug. 17, Coffey emailed VA public affairs with a draft of her statement, saying a forceful condemnation was necessary because the VA workforce, which is 40 percent minorities, was unsettled by the Charlottesville violence. Ullyot said that after consulting with Shulkin, he wanted Coffey to remove some of the more incendiary language. Coffey wrote back that his edits would likely "dilute my message and fail to convey the sense of condemnation that I hope we all feel." She published the unedited statement under her own name in her office's monthly VA newsletter; VA officials removed it and reprimanded her, and she resigned soon afterward.

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An anonymous person familiar with the dispute told the Post that "Ullyot was enforcing a directive from the White House, where officials were scrambling to contain the fallout from Trump's comments." A VA spokesman said there was no such directive from the White House. Read more at The Washington Post.