In February 2015, Baldwin fired her deputy state director over her handling of the VA report. The aide was offered but declined a severance deal that included a cash payout and a confidentiality agreement that would have required her to keep quiet. The aide filed an ethics complaint with the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The complaint was dismissed as lacking merit. Baldwin said, "we should have done a better job listening to and communicating with another constituent with whom we were working on problems at the VA", and that she had started a review of why her office had failed to act on the report. As a result of the review, Baldwin fined her chief of staff, demoted her state director, and reassigned a veterans' outreach staffer. In November 2017, Baldwin co-sponsored legislation designed to strengthen opioid safety in the Department of Veterans Affairs.