SAN DIEGO (CN) — The host of the popular podcast "Mueller, She Wrote" is suing her former employer, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the subject of her podcast, former President Donald Trump, claiming the VA retaliated after learning she was the anonymous voice behind critiques of Trump and the investigation into his links to Russian officials.
Allison Gill filed the lawsuit Monday in San Diego federal court, naming Trump as an individual, as well as former Secretary of the Veterans Administration Robert L. Wilkie.
Gill, a military veteran, began hosting the show in 2017. As the name hints, it centered on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. At the time, Gill worked for the VA as a liaison to the Department of Defense in California.
When she was told in April of 2019 that her job would be reassigned to Washington, D.C. Gill declined to move, due to both her husband's and mother’s health. The VA denied Gill's request to work fully remotely, first allowing her to telecommute for only three days out of the week — then limiting that agreement to 90 days and imposing strict conditions, including that she answer phone calls within five rings. At the same time, Gill was accused of abusing the Family and Medical Leave Act, and her accommodation request was ultimately closed.
Gill claims all of this lined up suspiciously with the timing of the April 2019 release Mueller's report.
By then, Gill had already amassed a sizable podcast listenership and social media following, using only her initials to publicly identify herself. That prompted the VA to hunt her down, Gill says, digging into videos and photos from her social media accounts — and to deny her work-related requests.
“On information and belief this coordinated effort to find the host of the podcast, A.G., goes all the way to defendants Trump and Wilkie, as what happened was part of a larger conspiracy,” Gill writes in the complaint.
As part of a coordinated retaliation campaign for her protected political speech, and for filing equal employment opportunity complaints, Gill claims she was subjected to discrimination and a hostile work environment that triggered and exacerbated her PTSD, panic disorder and major depressive disorder.
Ethan Bearman, Gill’s attorney, said Tuesday that he was not prepared to make any comment about the case now, apart from what's written in the introduction to the lawsuit.
“As an employer, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs is not a tool of the executive branch to harass and terminate those who appropriately use their First Amendment rights under the free exercise clause in opposition to the sitting President,” the introduction states.
“[Gill] provoked the ire of President Donald J. Trump and his Secretary of the Veterans Administration, Robert L. Wilkie, by daring to create, host, and produce the anti-Trump and wildly successful, Webby-award winning Mueller, She Wrote podcast and run a very popular Mueller, She Wrote Twitter account under a pseudonym, A.G.," the filing continues.
"After a 'witch hunt' to find out who this A.G. was, the chain of command was instructed to harass Dr. Gill and force her out of the job she had held across multiple administrations, making untenable, pretextual demands regarding her job requirements in violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Rehabilitation Act, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
The U.S. Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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