What Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) wants the VA inspector general to be accountable to is Miller's personal beliefs.
The inspector general's report on health care delays at Department of Veterans Affairs didn't say just what congressional Republicans wanted it to, so they're insisting the VA
must have leaned on the IG to change the report's conclusions. Specifically, the report said that the IG was "unable to conclusively assert that the absence of timely quality care caused the deaths of these veterans," a statement that goes against a key Republican talking point. So:
The issue will come to a head on Wednesday when House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) convenes a hearing with VA Secretary Robert McDonald and Richard Griffin, the VA’s acting inspector general, to discuss the report. Ahead of the hearing, Miller said he believed the agency pushed the IG to water down its findings.
“I was caught by surprise that a statement like that would be inserted between the draft and the final [report],” he said in an interview. “It’s a very curious thing to have occurred. I have every reason to believe that somebody within VA pressured [the IG].”
"Every reason to believe." That's a little different than evidence that it happened. Also, there's at least one thing we know Miller's list of reasons to believe doesn't include:
“No one in VA dictated that sentence going to that report. Period,” Griffin told the panel.
So basically, we're about to watch a House committee go to town on its Republican chair's belief that political pressure is the only reason for a report to not say what he wanted it to say. Not that this comes as any surprise after the months and millions of dollars Republicans have put into looking for anything at all to back up their Benghazi talking points.