Image: Wikimedia Commons (Dept. of Veterans Affairs)
According to an August 12 exclusive report from The Daily Signal, “President Donald Trump’s Department of Veterans Affairs processed more disability benefits compensation and pension ratings claims in a single year than ever before.”
“…in fiscal year 2024, VA processed a total of 2,517,519 ratings claims. This year, the department set a new record of 2,524,115 ratings claims issued by Aug. 8, nearly two months before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.”
On August 13, VA Secretary Doug Collins also took to X to announce the “all-time record for claims processing, [posting] the backlog of Veterans waiting for benefits is now down more than 37% since Jan. 20!”
Proud to announce @DeptVetAffairs just set an all-time record for claims processing. The backlog of Veterans waiting for benefits is now down more than 37% since Jan. 20! https://t.co/Wvdu11EZOr pic.twitter.com/HXEQ0IjsxP
— VA Secretary Doug Collins (@SecVetAffairs) August 13, 2025
Although news organizations are celebrating the achievement, there might be another aspect of the narrative to reflect on before becoming overly enthusiastic. Whistleblower Sonny Fleeman spoke to The Gateway Pundit. His opinions are entirely his own and do not reflect the views of the United States Government, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or any organization he is currently or has previously been associated with.
Fleeman describes his role as that of a “lesser magistrate,” operating fully within strict legal and professional limits. “Supported by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and my First Amendment rights, I’ve brought forward what I lawfully can—but those constraints prevent me from releasing the most incriminating evidence in my possession,” he shared.
“Like any lesser magistrate, my role can only expose the breach, [and] whether it is repaired depends entirely on veterans and the public taking up the fight,” Fleeman explained.
For some time, he has suspected that VA’s production quotas for Rating Veterans Service Representatives (RVSRs) are not based on “empirical data.” As a result, he asserted, these arbitrary performance criteria, imposed with the threat of disciplinary action, create immense pressure on claims processors and prioritize speed over precision.
According to him, “This forces claims processors to shortcut review of evidence, [and] the likely consequence is a high volume of erroneous decisions, which can only be corrected if veterans appeal.”
He explained, “If veterans are harmed by rushed, inaccurate decisions and are subsequently pushed into appeals, VA has created a hidden rework that is excluded from backlog counts.”
As a result, VA can claim “backlog reductions” while “simply recycling cases, distorting performance metrics,” according to the whistleblower. “With more than 2.5 million claims processed in 2024 and supplemental claims a large share of the pending workload,” he said, “the hidden cost is likely billions annually.”
“Cycling veterans’ claims through rework that never appears in the official backlog numbers conceals true systemic issues the public and Congress,” Fleeman argued. “By hiding this number, VA masks the true cost of errors, conceals the harm caused by unproven quotas, and presents a distorted picture of success to Congress, taxpayers, and veterans.”
He fears VA Secretary Collins may be unaware, potentially “relying on corrupt actors within his own organization who are actively misinforming him.” In his opinion, Collins’ announcement on X may be “exactly the kind of ‘political win’ a corrupt insider would hand to a leader who isn’t aware of the underlying fraud.”
Through a FOIA request, which has been reviewed by this author, the whistleblower sought all internal studies, workload assessments, time-motion analyses, or statistical data used to justify the current RVSR productivity standards. VA failed to provide any responsive record, despite multiple follow-ups and a direct request for a written certification of the nonexistence of the requested records.
“No documentation whatsoever was provided to justify the quotas imposed,” Fleeman shared, expressing, “this constitutes a de facto admission that no empirical data exists to support the current production standards.”
In an attempt to “verify the downstream effects of these arbitrary quotas,” Fleeman submitted a second FOIA request asking for the single most telling quality-control metric in the VA disability system: How often the department’s initial decisions are later disputed by veterans. Specifically, he requested monthly data—from October 2018 to the present—to disclose the following:
Total number of initial claims decided
The number and percentage of those claims that resulted in:
Supplemental Claims
Higher-Level Reviews (HLRs)
Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA) appeals
Initially, VA responded with an estimate: $5,507.80 and 72 staff hours to compile the data—effectively admitting the information existed and could be produced. Fleeman admitted he was “stunned.” In his view, there was “no excuse” for VA not to already be systematically tracking such “a fundamental measure of quality.”
Recognizing the significance of that revelation, he immediately narrowed the scope of his request to seek something even more consequential: A written certification from VA that it does not track the data, knowing that such an admission would, by itself, expose a serious systemic flaw.
In their response, he said the agency confirmed “[his] worst fear” that the data was not tracked. VA then offered an excuse that directly contradicted its earlier cost estimate, claiming the work would require “extensive analysis” at the issue level. As Fleeman noted, if VA could supposedly pull the data for every month since 2018 in 72 hours, it cannot credibly call it “extensive analysis” to provide the single most important performance metric to Congress, the public, or oversight bodies.
“These FOIA responses confirm a troubling reality,” he argued. According to him:
Arbitrary quotas put speed ahead of accuracy, leaving insufficient time to fully develop and review each veteran’s claim.
These pressures are certain to increase rushed, error-filled decisions—forcing veterans into lengthy appeals to get the benefits they’ve earned.
The most telling measure of harm—how often veterans dispute initial decisions—is intentionally left untracked, depriving the public, Congress, and veterans of the single best indicator of system-wide performance.
By not tracking dispute rates, leadership insulates itself from accountability—ensuring systemic decision-making failures remain buried, their scale invisible to Congress, veterans, and the public.
“This is not a clerical oversight or simple bureaucratic failure,” Fleeman asserted. “It appears to be structural deception, engineered to maintain the appearance of progress while concealing the full extent of systemic failure impacting millions of veterans.”
The post EXCLUSIVE: Whistleblower Drops Bombshell of Potential ‘Systemic Failure’ as VA Secretary Lauds Historic Achievement in Caseload Processing appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.