WASHINGTON — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to confirm Robert Wilkie as the new secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Wilkie, a Washington insider and longtime Defense Department official, was confirmed with a vote of 86-9.
The new secretary, who has worked both in government and at private-sector defense contractors, takes over a department facing large-scale changes and that still has vacancies in key leadership positions. As the VA chief, Wilkie will lead a department with more than 350,000 employees and a nearly $200 billion budget.
Wilkie first served as acting secretary after the ouster of Trump’s first VA secretary, David Shulkin, in March over a travel expenses scandal. Upon being nominated to the top VA post in May, Wilkie vacated the acting position for his job as an undersecretary at the Defense Department pending a confirmation hearing, leaving the department in the hands of acting secretary Peter O’Rourke. O’Rourke will likely remain at the VA, but the VA didn’t respond to a request for information on his new role.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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