Shernice Mundell thought she’d be working for the federal government for years.
The Air Force veteran and single mother of a teenage son left a job in the private sector to work at the Office of Personnel Management, essentially human resources for the federal government, in August and was promoted after just four months. As far as she knew, she was excelling and her job was secure.
Then came Feb. 13. That afternoon, she was invited to a meeting on Microsoft Teams, where she and 74 other people were shown a prerecorded video informing them they were being fired. She became one of the thousands of civil servants who have been unceremoniously fired by the Trump administration in its campaign to shrink the government.
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“I’m at a loss right now,” Mundell said Wednesday afternoon. “I feel like everything is surreal. I’m trying to figure out what’s going to happen with my life now. But I’m also going to continue to speak out. I think everyone needs to know what’s going on, not just for what happened to me but my coworkers that are still working there. It’s like psychological warfare.”
Mundell was testifying at a “shadow hearing” organized by Senate Veteran Affairs Committee ranking member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to spotlight how the Trump administration’s mass firings of so-called probationary employees — those hired or promoted within the last couple of years — across the federal government have disproportionately hit veterans.
In addition to Mundell, senators heard from three other veterans fired from various government agencies, a former cybersecurity specialist at a White House agency who was detailed to the Department of Veterans Affairs before being fired, and a representative from the left-wing VoteVets organization.
Blumenthal also invited VA Secretary Doug Collins to testify Wednesday, but the lawmaker said the secretary did not respond to the invitation. At the same time as the hearing, Collins was attending President Donald Trump’s White House event on what the president dubbed “Liberation Day” announcing hefty new global tariffs.
While Collins is expected to testify before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee at its annual budget hearing later this year, Democrats have been pushing Republicans who control committee gavels to hold more immediate hearings and said they held Wednesday’s event to highlight the urgency of the issue.
Wednesday’s shadow hearing was part of a bolder posture Democrats have taken in recent weeks to push back against Trump after an initially muted reaction to his presidency.
In addition to Wednesday’s event, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts hosted a shadow hearing in late February on the dismantling of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau; Democrats have been hosting town halls in districts represented by Republicans who aren’t taking questions from constituents; and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey set a record this week for longest Senate floor speech when he spent more than 25 hours speaking in opposition to Trump’s agenda.
Cuts at the VA, as well as how the broader government cuts are affecting veterans, have provided a particularly powerful political cudgel for Democrats that they wielded at Wednesday’s shadow hearing.
Ahead of the hearing, the VA brushed off Democrats’ criticism.
“Imagine how much better off veterans would be if lawmakers like Sen. Blumenthal cared as much about fixing VA as they do about protecting the department’s broken bureaucracy,” VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz said in an emailed statement Wednesday morning.
“VA health care has been on the Government Accountability Office’s high-risk list for more than a decade, and GAO says VA faces ‘system-wide challenges in overseeing patient safety and access to care, hiring critical staff and meeting future infrastructure needs,'” Kasperowicz added. “Under Secretary Collins, VA is working hard to fix these and other issues. Unfortunately, many in the media, government union bosses and some in Congress are fighting to keep in place the broken status quo. Our message to veterans is simple: Despite major opposition from those who don’t want to change a thing at VA, we will reform the department to make it work better for veterans, families, caregivers and survivors.”
But most of the witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing were veterans themselves, with several stressing that the Trump administration’s cuts and how they affect veterans should not be a partisan issue.
“This isn’t a political issue,” said Gabriel D’Alatri, a Marine Corps veteran who was fired from the IRS just five days short of the end of his probationary period. “It’s a nonpartisan issue, veterans. They’re on both sides of the floor, and I think everybody’s got to come together and work on this, because it’s scary for all the veterans out there.”
D’Alatri and another one of the fired veterans who testified have been reinstated to their jobs because of a court ruling that said the firings were illegal. But the Trump administration is appealing that ruling, meaning their employment is still shaky.
In addition to the fired veterans, the committee heard from Jonathan Kamens, who had worked for a White House agency called the United States Digital Service, or USDS, since 2023 and was detailed as a security adviser to the VA’s chief technology officer.
When Trump took office, he rebranded USDS as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and handed over control to billionaire Elon Musk. DOGE has been the driving force behind the Trump administration’s cuts across the government.
Kamens was fired in February for what he said he suspects was retaliation for opposing DOGE’s actions. At Wednesday’s hearing, he raised alarm about DOGE accessing veterans’ private data in their VA records.
“We have seen that what they are trying to do is break down the information security barriers that have been put in place throughout the government for many years to protect government data from abuse,” Kamens said. “And specifically they are making a huge effort to centralize access to that data.”
He said the reason such data has traditionally been decentralized in the federal government is to prevent it from being misused.
“And the only reason why you might need to centralize all of that data is to misuse it in a way that was not authorized by Congress and is not beneficial to the American people,” Kamens said. “It’s not just that I’m concerned about carelessness. I am concerned that DOGE and the Trump administration are explicitly going to misuse the data.”
Wednesday’s hearing was the first step in what Blumenthal is promising will be a series of actions Democrats will take to confront the Trump administration about cuts that are hurting veterans.
In addition to planning more shadow hearings, Blumenthal is backing the effort by Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., to slow down confirmations of VA nominees. Blumenthal also told reporters Wednesday that he and other Democrats will try to force votes on bills to address the issue.
In the meantime, the veterans who testified Wednesday said they just want to work.
“I think eventually we’re all going to need some counseling,” Mundell said. “I’m just trying to hold it all together right now. I just want to find a new job where I can provide for my family. Because I’m not used to not working and not being able to provide.”
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