Nominees for the Board of Veterans Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims faced tough questioning Wednesday from the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee regarding their qualifications and commitment to decide veteran benefits claims.
At stake is the future leadership of the Board of Veterans Appeals, which reviews and makes decisions on protests filed by veterans following claims denials and the makeup of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which would receive four new judges if all nominees are confirmed.
Four of the five nominees have extensive military and law experience, while the fifth has handled veterans’ issues while working in Congress for the past 17 years.
The nominees include former U.S. Attorney and retired Army Lt. Col. Maria Chapa Lopez, selected to chair the Board of Veterans Appeals, and four proposed Veterans Appeals Court judges: Robert Fleck, currently serving as deputy general counsel at the Department of Veterans Affairs; David Jones, a former member of the Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps; Daniel Rendleman, an Army aviator and JAG; and James Quinn, a longtime Senate staffer who has served as chief of staff for Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., for the past nine years.
The judgeship appointments are for up to 15 years.
“These institutions provide a critical avenue for the accountability and due process for veterans and their families nationwide,” Committee Chairman Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, said during his opening remarks. “The men and women whose nominations are under consideration each have extensive records of public service through serving in the military, justice system, executive branch and in the halls of the United States Senate.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the committee’s most senior Democrat, noted that despite the nominees’ extensive legal backgrounds, none had experience in handling veterans’ claims.
“Thank each of you for your willingness to serve,” Blumenthal said. “I’m gravely concerned that none of these nominees have any experience with veterans’ benefits law, whatsoever, not as judges, not as lawyers, not as advocates for veterans.”
Blumenthal noted that the court currently has three openings and Quinn has been nominated for a position that will not be vacant until next year after a new Congress is sworn in, a situation he said was “unprecedented in this committee.”
Blumenthal also submitted for the record a letter from 30 women’s and veterans organizations opposing Rendleman’s nomination over statements Rendleman made in an article in The Federalist opposing abortion, which he called “by far the greatest moral failing of our times.”
“If confirmed, you would have the power to decide if a veteran’s claims for reproductive health care coverage or reimbursement is denied,” Blumenthal said.
Rendleman said he wrote the article to understand opposing views and the role of a judge is to “faithfully and unbiasedly apply the rules as promulgated by the political branches.”
The VA currently covers the cost or provides abortions in circumstances where the life of the mother is endangered. The policy, which went into effect last year, ended a previous policy implemented in September 2022 that allowed VA medical personnel to conduct abortions in cases of rape and incest.
According to the nominees, most were approached by the Trump administration to consider their roles.
Lopez said she was asked since she was a veteran who had served in the Justice Department under Trump’s first term. The White House also approached Rendleman with the potential judgeship, while Fleck said his appointment was suggested by VA attorneys.
Jones was nominated after asking for consideration while he was a military liaison in the White House and Quinn said that having worked on veterans issues, he approached the White House Counsel’s Office for a possible appointment.
All four judges told the committee they would commit to making correct decisions and work to improve the process with congressional oversight.
“The most important thing for the judges is to get it right and get it right the first time, but realize you have to move at a deliberate pace,” Jones said.
“The key is to jump in with both feet first with efficiency and vigor, looking at both what you can do on the chambers level … but also what you can do working, if I am fortunate to be nominated with my fellow colleagues, in terms of procedures and policies of the court as a whole,” Rendleman said.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said she opposes Fleck’s nomination for his role in forging an agreement between the Justice Department and the VA that allows the VA to request that states appoint guardians for incapacitated veterans who don’t have family or legal representation to make medical decisions.
Duckworth said in one case of guardianship, a guardian made decisions for a Navy veteran that included signing a “Do Not Resuscitate” plan against the veteran’s wishes and making medical decisions for the veteran who later died as a result of the guardian’s choices.
According to Duckworth, the guardian later was convicted of felony elderly neglect.
“The VA has many options to free up hospital beds without sending veterans in need of care off into the realm of state appointed guardianships with no plans to ensure that the veterans are safe,” Duckworth said. “I don’t think this is some clever efficiency hack, it’s a dereliction of duty.”
The lawmakers noted that the number of cases under consideration by both the board and the veterans appeals court have risen considerably in the past several years, to 10,000 in fiscal 2025, up from roughly 2,600 a year in the first 15 years of the court’s establishment in 1988.
Fleck said the increase could be attributed to several reasons, including the enactment of the VA Appeals Modernization Act in 2019 that overhauled the process as well as the PACT Act, which increased the number of claims by veterans exposed to environmental toxins while serving abroad.
Fleck also faced questions about his involvement in the hiring of his wife, a former Army attorney, at the VA. A 2018 VA Office of Inspector General report found that Fleck engaged in nepotism in the hiring process and improperly shared sensitive data with his wife during the effort.
He was also accused of making false statements to the OIG during the investigation.
Fleck told the committee that in later court proceedings, the OIG report was “substantially discredited” because the office did not consider additional evidence during its investigation and he denied extensive participation in the process.
“My supervisor, the deputy general counsel asked me about my wife, I said I had no comment on it and he asked me to send him her resume. That’s all the contact we did,” Fleck said.
Patricia Kime is a senior writer covering military and veterans health care, medicine and personnel issues.
