The Daily Scoop Podcast

Federal agencies must now allow any officials designated by the president or agency leadership to have complete access to unclassified records, data, software systems and IT systems, President Donald Trump declared in an executive order late Thursday night. Trump’s directive aims to stop waste, fraud and abuse by eliminating information silos, requiring agency heads to “ensure Federal officials designated by the President or Agency Heads (or their designees) have full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, data, software systems, and information technology systems — or their equivalents if providing access to an equivalent dataset does not delay access — for purposes of pursuing Administration priorities related to the identification and elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse.” “This includes authorizing and facilitating both the intra- and inter-agency sharing and consolidation of unclassified agency records,” the executive order states. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order last Thursday blocking Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from further access to any Social Security Administration systems that contain personally identifiable information. Judge Ellen Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland also ordered that all DOGE team members associated with the organization’s work at SSA, including Elon Musk and U.S. DOGE Service leader Amy Gleason, must disgorge and delete all non-anonymized personal information they obtained from the agency’s systems. The decision is an initial victory in the case where Democracy Forward led a group of unions and an advocacy organization in suing the Social Security Administration and its acting Commissioner Leland Dudek for giving DOGE access to “some of the nation’s most sensitive data, including the financial data, employment information, medical data, and personal addresses of millions of Americans,” according to the initial complaint. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to consolidate the contracting of common goods and services, including information technology, under the General Services Administration. Within 30 days of the order’s issuance, GSA will take over as the executive agent of all governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWACs) for IT, as designated by the Office of Management and Budget. “Consolidating domestic Federal procurement in the General Services Administration — the agency designed to conduct procurement — will eliminate waste and duplication, while enabling agencies to focus on their core mission of delivering the best possible services for the American people,” the order says. As part of GSA’s new role, the administrator will be able to “defer or decline” being the executive agent of IT governmentwide contracts “when necessary to ensure continuity of service or as otherwise appropriate.” Other major GWACs for technology across the federal government include the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center’s vehicles like its CIO-SP3 and embattled CIO-SP4, as well as NASA’s Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) contracts. The General Services Administration on Thursday revealed a new generative AI tool designed to boost efficiency and help automate repetitive tasks. The platform, now available to GSA staff, comes amid anxiety that the Department of Government Efficiency might use artificial intelligence to surveil or replace federal workers, who are being laid off in large swaths across the government. The GSA chatbot can access a series of large language models, including technology from Anthropic and Meta. The system resembles other AI chatbots, and it’s designed to respond to user prompts and help staff with basic tasks, like writing. Earlier this month, Wired first reported that the DOGE had deployed a chatbot called GSAi for 1,500 workers. According to Wired, the tool had been in development for several months, but DOGE accelerated the rollout of the platform and eventually wants to use it for data analysis of contracts and procurements. GSA said in a Thursday statement it is encouraging all of its staff to test the tool.

The Pentagon is currently placing more than 20,000 employees on administrative leave and a path to full termination, following staff approval for voluntary participation in the Trump administration’s Elon Musk-inspired “fork in the road” initiative, according to top officials involved in the major workforce reduction plans. In an off-camera press briefing Tuesday, two senior defense officials provided new information (on the condition of anonymity) regarding the Defense Department’s unfolding effort to shrink its massive civilian employee pool using three main mechanisms. An official stressed to DefenseScoop that this is a very active process and things are fluid as the department’s leadership engages with services and components. At the start of his second administration, President Donald Trump immediately directed federal agencies to drastically reduce their workforces and review existing contracts as part of a broader move to ultimately cut back on what his team views as wasteful spending and inefficiencies. Inside the DOD, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a “strategic reduction” of 5-8% of civilian personnel — with a sharp focus on “promoting the department’s lethality, readiness and warfighting ability” while meeting Trump’s mandate, a senior defense official noted. As the Defense Department anticipates the wireless networks of the future for warfighting missions, it has shifted its focus for research and development primarily to 6G wireless technologies, Marlan Macklin, deputy principal director for the Pentagon’s FutureG Office, said Wednesday. The DOD is looking to the next-generation wireless tech to further build on the improved speeds, latency and capacity it gained with 5G and support the U.S. military’s use of new capabilities at the edge. With that, Macklin said the Pentagon is beginning to experiment with 6G in a variety of ways. As an example, the FutureG Office has been experimenting with a concept called Integrated Sensing and Communication, which uses radio frequencies of all objects — including those not actively transmitting data — connected to a network to create situational awareness of the surrounding environment, according to Macklin. One way in which the U.S. military could apply this emerging concept is to improve awareness and management of drones in a given environment, Macklin said. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Several federal agencies responsible for terminating nearly 25,000 federal probationary status workers told a federal court Monday evening that they’re complying with an order to reinstate those employees, giving thousands of people their jobs back for the time being. According to a status report and corresponding declarations filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, 18 federal agencies and their subcomponents said they were working to reinstate their fired probationary employees following the court order. Most of those agencies said those workers would be placed on administrative leave. While the court order doesn’t cover all fired probationary workers, the declarations in the case offer one of the first clear windows into the breadth of firings under President Donald Trump. Per figures in those declarations, the agencies initially terminated 24,813 probationary workers. Of that total, 15,499 were offered reinstatement as a direct result of the court’s order. An additional 5,925 employees, at least, were previously offered reinstatement by those respective agencies before the court’s order. That includes the 5,714 terminated employees in the U.S. Department of Agriculture who got their jobs back for 45 days as the result of a ruling by a quasi-judicial body within the executive branch known as the Merit Systems Protection Board. As litigation plays out on DOGE access to individuals’ sensitive data, a House lawmaker is asking civil society groups, privacy experts, government technologists and others to inform legislation seeking to modernize the Privacy Act of 1974. Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., said in a press release that she is beginning an effort to reform the Privacy Act, which has been cited in various lawsuits against agencies over allegedly allowing unauthorized DOGE staffers to access data that could contain personally identifiable information. “Unaccountable billionaires, inexperienced programmers and unvetted political appointees are perpetrating the biggest government privacy scandal since Watergate,” Trahan said in the release. In order to begin this effort, Trahan is asking the public to respond to a series of questions, including the federal government’s need to balance privacy with other priorities like reducing waste, how the government can effectively leverage privacy-enhancing technologies, the privacy risks associated with artificial intelligence and more. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

A lawyer who’s said to have played a central role in the Department of Government Efficiency’s attempted takeover of at least one federal organization is now defending in court the DOGE email system used to send email blasts to the entire U.S. government workforce. During a Feb. 6 hearing, Jacob Altik joined the defense in the ongoing lawsuit where pseudonymous federal workers have accused the Office of Personnel Management of standing up its new governmentwide email system with inadequate privacy and security protections in place. While the defense introduced him at the time as being “from OPM,” counsel for the plaintiffs filed a new notice early Monday essentially connecting the dots that Altik, through other lawsuits and public reports, has played a hands-on role in supporting the DOGE. Altik was first identified as a DOGE lawyer with an official DOGE email address hosted by the Executive Office of the President in a ProPublica article from early February, the Monday legal notice notes. Then, Altik was identified in a separate ongoing lawsuit as working hand-in-hand with DOGE associates in the organization’s attempt to dismantle the U.S. African Development Foundation. The DOGE is also in the spotlight in another case where state attorneys general have sued President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent challenging DOGE access to Treasury records. In the latest development in that litigation, DOGE staffer Marko Elez, who resigned in February after racist social media posts surfaced, is said to have shared personally identifiable information in a spreadsheet with two General Services Administration officials, according to the filing from a witness in the case. The testiomony explains that Elez shared names in the spreadsheet that are considered low risk PII because the names are not accompanied by more specific identifiers, such as social security numbers or birth dates. Still, the distribution of this spreadsheet was contrary to BFS policies, in that it was not sent encrypted, and he did not obtain prior approval of the transmission as required. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Department of Homeland Security has selected Antoine McCord as its new chief information officer, a spokesperson with the agency’s Management Directorate confirmed Friday. As CIO, McCord will be tasked with overseeing DHS’s roughly $11 billion IT budget, the largest of any federal agency in fiscal 2025. A bio for McCord on the DHS website said he “emphasizes mission-driven leadership, focusing on operations to neutralize threats against the Department.” Details about McCord’s background are scarce, beyond what’s contained in that DHS bio page. According to the agency, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, specializing in cyber and intelligence operations and “gaining hands-on experience in threat detection and technology integration.” After his time with the Marines, McCord joined the U.S. Intelligence Community, according to DHS, in roles that saw him oversee cyber operations against advanced threats and serve as an adviser on national security issues. McCord will be stepping into a CIO role that was filled during the Biden administration by Eric Hysen, who also led the department’s artificial intelligence efforts. Hysen, a Google alum and a founding member of the White House’s U.S. Digital Service, oversaw the creation of DHS’s AI Corps, the publication of an AI roadmap and the release of commercial generative AI guidance. Firings at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have former workers, lawmakers, and advocates concerned about impact on the agency’s efforts to produce climate and weather information critical to public safety. NOAA is one of many federal agencies in the U.S. that has cut probationary workers in recent weeks as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to reduce the size of the federal government. While critics of the Trump administration have argued the rapid and widespread staffing reductions could have adverse consequences across the government, the picture they paint with respect to NOAA’s terminations is particularly grim. That’s because the agency’s mission impacts every American, former NOAA workers told FedScoop. The recent cuts to staff put that work at risk, particularly for areas at the agency where staffing levels were already an issue, they said. What’s more, there are areas outside of staffing cuts where efficiencies could have been achieved through consolidating work and technology advancements. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

When the Trump administration began sidelining and laying off personnel at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, it started by targeting employees who worked on election security and disinformation. At the same time, the Department Homeland Security announced it would conduct a comprehensive review of CISA’s election security mission. Last week, the agency confirmed that it has completed the review, but said that its findings won’t be released to the public. A spokesperson for the agency said: “The assessment that CISA has undertaken is internal and will help inform how the agency moves forward to best support critical infrastructure. This is an internal document that is not planned to be released publicly.” A DHS spokesperson told CyberScoop in an email that the department had nothing else to share at this time. Secretary Pete Hegseth is directing all Defense Department components to embrace a rapid software acquisition pathway and use commercial solutions opening and Other Transaction authority to speed up the procurement of digital tools for warfighters. The department’s Software Acquisition Pathway was set up during the first Trump administration under then Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord as part of a broader push for a so-called Adaptive Acquisition Framework that enables the department to procure software differently than it buys hardware. Programs on that pathway are not subject to some of the encumbrances associated with the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System and major defense acquisition program designations. Now, Hegseth wants to make sure all DOD components are taking advantage of the pathway.

Ethan Klein, an emerging technology policy adviser during the first Trump administration, has been nominated to be the White House’s chief technology officer, the Office of Science and Technology Policy confirmed Tuesday. After serving in the first Trump White House, Klein completed a PhD in nuclear science and engineering at MIT, where he worked to develop nuclear tech for arms control and nonproliferation with funds from a fellowship through the National Nuclear Security Administration. Klein also spent time at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is operated for the NNSA and focuses on weapons development, stewardship and national security. Klein has been pursuing an MBA at Stanford, while working as a summer associate for the Aerospace and Defense group within Lazard, a financial advisory and asset management firm. If confirmed as CTO, Klein would fill the same role that Michael Kratsios did during the first Trump administration, which went unfilled for the entirety of the Biden administration. The Department of Government Efficiency’s increasingly vast power across the government likely makes it subject to U.S. records law, a federal judge said Monday in a ruling that ordered the Elon Musk-led group to begin processing requests on an expedited timeline. In a 37-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper concluded that DOGE — the rebranded U.S. Digital Service — “is likely exercising substantial independent authority much greater than” other components within the Executive Office of the President that are covered by the Freedom of Information Act, subjecting it to the same rules. Cooper noted as examples that the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality are both covered by FOIA due to the substantial independent authority they wield when it comes to the evaluation of federal programs. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

All non-critical and non-statutorily required work will cease at the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services as part of a 50% reduction of the office, according to Director Thomas Shedd. In his prepared remarks for a Thursday afternoon town hall, which were obtained by FedScoop, Shedd said that to deliver technology at GSA in a “more focused and streamlined way,” moving forward TTS will support only work that is required by statute and policy, fits into the Trump administration’s definition of critical, and is prioritized by the leadership at GSA “in accordance with the priorities of the administration.” Everything else will be eliminated, per Shedd, who said in his remarks that TTS will be smaller in size – at least 50% smaller. Additionally, any contracts that support the work that falls outside of the established bounds “will be terminated” and any job functions that are deemed non-essential will be cut. The prioritized and remaining TTS programs include Login.gov, FedRAMP, Cloud.gov, statutorily required websites, the Integrated Award Environment, the Office of Regulatory Oversight, the Centers of Excellence, the Presidential Innovation Fellowship Program, the U.S. Digital Corps, operations and other “special projects.” Australian-based software company Atlassian has tapped Matthew Graviss to be its first public sector chief technology officer following his recent departure as the State Department’s top data and AI official. Although the role starts a new private sector chapter in Graviss’s career, being the first person to establish a newly created position is familiar ground. During his time in the federal government, Graviss was the first-ever chief data officer at both the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In an interview with FedScoop, Graviss said his role at Atlassian is an extension of that experience in that he’ll again be codifying the responsibilities of the job, showing value and solving customer problems. Regardless of whether his role is in or out of the government, Graviss said “the delivery of better goods and services to citizens is contingent upon … an ecosystem of government employees, service providers, and solution providers.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Early in the morning on March 1, without notice, the General Services Administration eliminated its 18F program, what was an internal team of tech consultants and engineers that developed open-source tools to improve digital services across the federal government. Just short of its 11th birthday, 18F had grown to be a staple in the federal government’s digital services development and acquisition space. Now when you type in "18F.gov" to visit its website, you’re met with an error message. The team has been completely wiped from the face of the federal government. GSA hasn’t given much reasoning for the termination. Thomas Shedd, head of the agency’s Technology Transformation Services organization that housed 18F, said during a town hall last week that the decision was based purely on its reported cashflow struggles and that it hadn’t been cost-recoverable. Dan Tangherlini, former GSA administrator when 18F was founded, joins the Daily Scoop to share his thoughts on what 18F meant to good government, the legacy of the organization, and how GSA will continue to serve as the federal government’s center of tech excellence without this key team moving forward. Roughly a month after being replaced as acting CIO of the Department of Energy, Principal Deputy CIO Dawn Zimmer is now back serving in the department’s top IT role, multiple sources familiar with the change confirmed to FedScoop. Zimmer is filling the CIO position for the second time since Inauguration Day after Ryan Riedel briefly took on the role overseeing the department’s $4.3 billion IT portfolio in early February. As FedScoop first reported, Zimmer returned to her primary role as principal deputy CIO at Energy when Riedel, previously a network engineer at Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, was appointed to the CIO role. She took over the acting CIO role after Biden administration Energy CIO Ann Dunkin stepped down at the change of administrations. It’s unclear why Riedel departed the role after just over a month. The Energy Department did not return questions about his short tenure. President Donald Trump nominated Sean Plankey to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Tuesday, the last major piece to fall into place for cybersecurity leadership in his administration. Plankey served in the first Trump administration, holding a few posts with cyber responsibilities. He was the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Energy Department’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response in 2019 and 2020. Before that he was director of cyber policy at the National Security Council, starting in 2018. He has most recently been at the global cybersecurity advisory company WTW. Plankey was briefly under consideration in 2020 to lead the agency he’s now nominated to be director of after Trump forced Chris Krebs out of the role. He had long been thought to be Trump’s pick this time around, too. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.