Three members of President Trump’s Florida golf club Mar-a-Lago who are not government officials have “sweeping influence” over the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a new report.
The three include Ike Perlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment and a close pal of the president; Bruce Moskowitz, a prominent Palm Beach doctor; and Marc Sherman, a lawyer, ProPublica reported.
The website reported a series of examples of the trio’s unofficial but extensive influence.
After Peter O’Rourke was named chief of staff for the department, he got an email from Moskowitz containing the doctor’s advice on a new mental health initiative for the VA.
“Received,” O’Rourke replied. “I will begin a project plan and develop a timeline for action.”
The three have pressured VA officials to tweak policies that affect millions of veterans, the website reported.
Only a few VA insiders are even aware of their influence, calling them “the Mar-a-Lago Crowd.”
Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman declined to be interviewed by ProPublica, and took questions through a crisis communications consultant.
They downplayed their influence at the VA in a statement.
“At all times, we offered our help and advice on a voluntary basis, seeking nothing at all in return,” they said.
“While we were always willing to share our thoughts, we did not make or implement any type of policy, possess any authority over agency decisions, or direct government officials to take any action. To the extent anyone thought our role was anything other than that, we don’t believe it was the result of anything we said or did.”
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz “have no direct influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs.”
But hundreds of documents obtained by the website through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with former VA officials reveal that they involved themselves in the department without oversight.
The “Mar-a-Lago Crowd” spoke with VA officials daily, the documents showed, reviewing policy and personnel decisions, and they pushed VA officials to launch new programs.
VA officials even traveled to Mar-a-Lago at taxpayer expense to hear what they had to say.
“Everyone has to go down and kiss the ring,” a former administration official told the website.
Trump and Perlmutter speak regularly on the phone and dine together when the president visits his Florida resort.
“On any veterans issue, the first person the president calls is Ike,” another former official said.
Former administration officials say that VA leaders who were at odds with the Mar-A-Lago Crowd were pushed out, including a deputy secretary, chief of staff, acting undersecretary for health, deputy undersecretary for health, chief information officer and the director of electronic health records modernization.
The three often advised since-fired VA chief David Shulkin about how he should do his job and acted like board members pushing him to turn the agency around.
“Everything needs to be run by them,” a former official said. “They view themselves as making the decisions.”
