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June 19, 2013

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Mark Flatten

Watchdog Team

Mark Flatten is an award-winning investigative and political reporter for three Arizona newspapers. Among his many citations are the Arizona Newspaper Association's Freedom of Information Award in 2011, the Society of Professional Journalists' First Amendment Award in 2010, and the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism in 2005.

Contributions from Mark Flatten

  • Paralysis in Congress keeps federal worker disability fraudsters cashing the checks

    By Mark Flatten | 06/18/13 07:25 PM

    Part three of a three-part series Getting federal employees off disability and into retirement while closing off opportunities for fraud has proved all but impossible for President Obama and his immediate predecessor, as well as for Congress. A proposal to curb the lucrative benefits paid to...

  • Disability can be easy street for federal bureaucrats

    By Mark Flatten | 06/18/13 11:25 AM

    Getting hurt on the job can be a golden parachute for federal workers. Part 2 of a three-part Washington Examiner Watchdog team report.

  • Experts say fraud rampant in federal worker disability program

    By Mark Flatten | 06/17/13 06:45 AM

    First of a three-part series A postal worker who ran marathons found her race times improved after she began drawing federal disability checks for an alleged back injury. Another disabled federal employee went scuba diving, skied in Switzerland and did flips on a trapeze. She spent part of...

  • UPDATED! Chinese, other nations hacked VA computers, officials can't account for everything stolen

    By Mark Flatten | 06/04/13 02:40 PM

    Foreign governments are hacking into Department of Veterans Affairs computers and gaining access to sensitive personal information about millions of veterans, VA employees and their families, the agency's former head of cyber security are testifying today in a congressional hearing. At least...

  • Watchdog: House takes wait-and-see view of new VA claims backlog plan

    By Mark Flatten | 05/22/13 06:20 PM

    Worries that the Department of Veterans Affairs is rigging numbers without fixing problems delaying thousands of disability claims for more than two years were vented today during a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.

  • Newly released docs show inconsistencies in FBI training manual censorship

    By Mark Flatten | 05/22/13 06:30 AM

    Implying the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization or that al Qaeda had links to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center were enough to have documents purged from FBI training manuals, according to newly released agency documents. Other training materials that were scrubbed from...

  • VA's No. 2 lawyer is agency's No. 1 bonus man

    By Mark Flatten | 05/09/13 05:35 PM

    A top lawyer at the Department of Veterans Affairs got almost $126,000 in performance bonuses during a five-year period in which the agency imposed an illegal rule that drew the threat of sanctions from a federal appeals court. John H. "Jack" Thompson, deputy general counsel at VA, received...

  • EXAMINER EXCLUSIVE: Failing VA officials collected massive bonuses for years

    By Mark Flatten | 05/08/13 05:40 PM

    Top executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters and in regional offices across the country routinely collected merit and other bonuses for more than five years that in some cases totaled more than $100,000, The Washington Examiner has found. At the same time, performance at...

  • Washington Examiner got bonus data with no thanks to VA

    By Mark Flatten | 05/08/13 05:40 PM

    Figuring out who is in charge at the Department of Veterans Affairs seems simple enough. But the VA refused to provide any information when The Washington Examiner sought to determine how much the directors of failing regional offices have been paid in salaries and bonuses. The newspaper...



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