Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., declared Wednesday she cannot support the confirmation of Robert R. Fleck to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, citing a VA-Department of Justice agreement that she said empowers VA attorneys to strip veterans of their civil rights.

During a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing on several VA-related nominations, Duckworth pressed Fleck — who acknowledged leading the establishment of the process in his role as Deputy General Counsel at VA — on the risks the agreement poses to vulnerable veterans.

This is an inherent conflict of interest. The VA, the agency responsible for caring for veterans, is now also the agency empowered to ask a court to strip veterans of their legal autonomy.

At the hearing, saying the words quoted above. Captions from the auto-transcript.

Duckworth described the agreement as creating a pathway for stripping veterans of their civil rights, including the right to make medical decisions, to decide where to live, and under a full guardianship, to manage their own finances. She then walked through the case of Stephen Stryker, a Navy veteran she said died in a Tampa hospital in 2019 after his court-appointed guardian capped his feeding tube and signed a do-not-resuscitate order against his wishes and over his family's objections.

He choked to death in a Tampa hospital in 2019. His guardian said she preferred quality of life versus quantity of life in making her decision on whether or not he should live or die.

Duckworth noted that a judge later removed that guardian from nearly 100 cases and that she was convicted of felony elder neglect. Fleck said he was not familiar with the Stryker case.

Fleck defended the process, saying guardianship proceedings would come only after a thorough search for family members or other surrogates willing to step forward. Duckworth pushed back, arguing that guardianship should be a last resort and that Congress had already provided the VA with alternatives such as medical foster homes, community living centers, and caregiver support.

I still cannot understand why the VA, in the department's responses to our request for information, would not commit that VA attorneys would monitor cases and instead confirm that oversight remains solely with the state court under this agreement. So basically, the Trump administration's decision is to wash its hands of responsibility for veterans' welfare, and I don't think this is some clever efficiency hack. It's a dereliction of duty. And because of this and other major concerns, I cannot support your confirmation.

The hearing also covered the nomination of Maria Lopez to be Chairman of the Board of Veterans' Appeals and three other nominees to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Sen. Angus S. King, D-Maine, followed by questioning Lopez about a reported 21 percent projected increase in appeals to the board alongside proposed cuts to its funding and staffing.