The Daily Scoop Podcast

The Treasury Department is losing two of its top technology officials, according to agency sources. Brian Peretti, Treasury’s chief technology officer, is leaving the position and taking the federal government’s early retirement option, two people within the agency said. Peretti helped organize the department’s planning process for information technology and also served in the role of chief artificial intelligence officer. Rick Therrien, Treasury’s chief information security officer, is also retiring, the two agency sources said. Therrien had served in the position since July 2024, and, before then, held a series of roles at the Internal Revenue Service. The moves come amid tensions in the Treasury Department over the influence of the Department of Government Efficiency and the departures of IT officials across the federal government. The Defense Department’s chief information officer said this week she’s kicking off a new program that aims to overhaul cumbersome bureaucratic mechanisms and streamline its ability to rapidly approve new software capabilities for warfighters. Under the Software Fast Track (SWIFT) program, the Pentagon will use artificial intelligence to replace legacy authority to operate (ATO) and Risk Management Framework (RMF) processes when buying new software. Acting DOD CIO Katie Arrington signed a memo authorizing the new effort said and it would officially launch May 1. 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.

Government Accountability Office auditors are examining the “digital footprint” left by DOGE in Treasury Department, Social Security Administration and Office of Personnel Management IT systems, the watchdog’s leader told Congress on Tuesday. Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro said GAO auditors are looking into what data was accessed by the Elon Musk underlings during their forays into agency IT systems, and determining if any changes were made. “We’re looking at the digital footprint within each of these major systems across government,” Dodaro said, naming OPM, SSA and Treasury specifically. “So we’ll have a better idea about what impact DOGE’s access has had on the data systems, and whether there’s been any information input into the system or taken out of the system.” The General Services Administration unveiled a new initiative Tuesday that it says is aimed at helping agencies gain easier access to IT tools and shifting how the federal government approaches procurement. The OneGov Strategy is meant to modernize how the government buys goods and services and calls for more direct engagement with Original Equipment Manufacturers. The GSA said in a press release that OEMs “will benefit from a more direct and predictable engagement model.” Taxpayers, meanwhile, will benefit from a “smarter, more secure federal IT enterprise” under the strategy, the GSA said. While agencies have, in the past, bought software through resellers, the GSA believes this approach prioritizes direct relationships for enhanced outcomes. Stephen Ehikian, the agency’s acting administrator, called the OneGov Strategy “a bold step forward” in GSA’s “mission to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars. It’s about acting as one — aligning to our scale, standards and security to meet the needs of today’s government while prepping for the future.” 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 memo sent to U.S. Agency for International Development employees Thursday announced that the now-hobbled agency will no longer try to salvage government devices for staff based domestically. The move is notable, given that USAID had previously initiated some work to transfer technical assets to the State Department. It is not uncommon for the agency to remotely wipe devices abroad, but doing so domestically — and then trashing the equipment — is unusual. Federal agencies often auction office equipment, including computers, they no longer need. In the letter, which was viewed by FedScoop, employees were told that U.S.-based direct hires, personal service contractors, and institutional support contractors must complete “various exit tasks,” including the return of government equipment. To “simplify the process and reduce burden,” the agency says it isn’t requiring employees to return iPhones, iPads, and laptops. The memo stated: “The IT equipment will be remotely wiped and marked as disposed from USAID IT asset inventories on or around the employee Reduction in Force (RIF) date, and the employee can then dispose of the assets. Further details and updates regarding the remote wiping/sanitization process for the devices and what to anticipate will be communicated closer to the RIF dates.” Secretary of the Navy John Phelan on Thursday ordered the termination of hundreds of millions of dollars in IT contracts and unrelated grants as part of a broader push at the Defense Department to slash spending that the Trump administration deems wasteful. The moves — outlined in a pair of memos issued to the chief of naval operations, Marine Corps commandant, Navy assistant secretaries and general counsel — are pursuant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “commitment to strategically rebuild our military, restore accountability to the Department of Defense, cut wasteful spending, and implement the President’s orders,” Phelan wrote. The IT contracts axed by the SECNAV include those for the Naval Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (NMRO) program. Phelan also directed the Navy’s chief information officer to prepare a new acquisition strategy by July 31, along with management review of the program. 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 director of the National Science Foundation announced his departure Thursday after five years at the agency. In a brief public statement, Sethuraman Panchanathan said he was stepping down effective Thursday and called it “an honor and privilege to serve as the Director of NSF.” He also informed employees at NSF in an internal memorandum viewed by FedScoop. “I believe I have done all I can to advance the critical mission of the agency and feel that it is time for me to pass the baton to new leadership,” Panchanathan said in the public statement. Panchanathan assumed the role as NSF director during the first administration of President Donald Trump and carried on under Joe Biden. Under his leadership, the department launched its 27 AI institutes, began its Technology, Innovation, and Partnership Directorate, which has funded regional hubs for innovation across the U.S., and started the National AI Research Resource pilot project. His departure comes soon after the agency began terminating grants that didn’t comply with the priorities of the current administration, including items related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation and disinformation. A bipartisan pair of House lawmakers are pushing for the reauthorization of the law that launched the Technology Modernization Fund. Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on Thursday reintroduced the Modernizing Government Technology Act, which largely mimics legislation introduced during the last Congress, just with an updated sunset date of 2032 instead of 2031. The bill revises and adds some additional requirements to the original Modernizing Government Technology Act, which passed in 2017. Connolly said in a press release that the reauthorization bill is a “welcome show of support for the [TMF] and the critical goal that drove its creation — bringing federal IT into the 21st century.” The bill looks to increase the TMF’s effectiveness by creating new reporting requirements for the federal chief information officer and agency CIOs, requiring a list of high-risk legacy IT systems that are used, operated or maintained by the agency, according to the bill’s text. 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.

Members of the Department of Government Efficiency have made their way into the National Science Foundation, as grants throughout the agency are being terminated. Three DOGE affiliates are currently listed as working in the Office of the Director at NSF, according to multiple sources within the agency: Luke Farritor, a former SpaceX intern and AI engineer who has shown up at other agencies DOGE has entered; Rachel Riley, a former McKinsey consultant who has also appeared at the Department of Health and Human Services; and Zachary Terrell. As part of the arrangement, Farritor has a “Budget, Finance, and Administration” clearance, which a source said allows him to view and modify the agency’s funding opportunity system. Farritor and Terrell are listed in an agency directory as consultants. On April 18, NSF published a statement that it was terminating grants and awards that don’t align with the administration’s priorities, including those related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation and disinformation. Alexis Bonnell has stepped down from her positions at the Air Force Research Laboratory and transitioned to a new job at OpenAI, the company responsible for the development of ChatGPT. In 2023, Bonnell was tapped to serve as AFRL’s first-ever chief information officer and director of the laboratory’s Digital Capabilities Directorate, where she led the lab’s information technology strategy and overall modernization efforts. According to a Tuesday post on LinkedIn, Bonnell is now working at OpenAI as a partnership manager, a position she took on in March. 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.

Labor Department employees can now access two OpenAI models through the company’s partnership with Microsoft Azure, making the agency the latest to integrate generative AI into its workflow. The two OpenAI models now available to Labor staff are GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini, according to documents viewed by FedScoop. The agency’s platform for the OpenAI tech suggests that staff use the technology for specific applications, including a language translator, a “pros and cons analyzer,” and a memo writer. A large document analyzer and document comparison tool are also available in the interface. Along with that, the department has published a guide on the appropriate use of AI systems and cautions agency users that their role in properly using the generative AI tools is “crucial.” Staff are flagged with a warning before using the tool and are instructed to review outputs for accuracy. Previously, these kinds of generative AI tools had not been approved for Labor Department use and employees were warned not to enter federal information into the systems, a source within the agency told FedScoop. Two top officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who worked with the private sector to manufacture secure products and technology are leaving the agency. Bob Lord, senior technical adviser and Lauren Zabierek, senior advisor at CISA, were two of the chief architects behind CISA’s Secure by Design initiative, which garnered voluntary commitments from major vendors and manufacturers to build cybersecurity protections into their products at the design stage. On Monday in separate posts on LinkedIn, Lord and Zabierek both said they are departing the agency. Neither offered a rationale or motivation for the decision, with Lord simply calling it a “difficult decision” and Zabierek saying it was “not an easy choice.” 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.

Dozens of Democrats wrote a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on Wednesday demanding information on the Department of Government Efficiency’s unauthorized use of artificial intelligence systems. The letter, which was led by Reps. Don Beyer, D-Va., Mike Levin, D-Calif., and Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M. and signed by 45 other lawmakers, expressed concerns about privacy and security risks associated with the group’s use of federal data in unapproved AI systems, as well as potential conflicts of interest involving Elon Musk, who leads an AI firm called xAI. Specifically, the lawmakers flagged reports of DOGE affiliates inputting data into unapproved AI systems and the risk that sensitive federal data could be used to train future commercial models. Douglas Matty assumed the role of the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Officer on Monday, according to an internal unclassified email viewed by DefenseScoop. The principal deputy who has been temporarily leading the AI hub ahead of the Trump administration’s selection for the new chief, Margie Palmieri, sent the announcement to several senior officials Friday morning. In the email, she indicated that more communications on the team’s path ahead would soon follow, once Matty takes the reins. Matty previously founded the Army AI Integration Center under Army Futures Command, which he led between 2020 and 2022. Palmieri wrote: “We are excited to get appointed leadership at the helm of CDAO so early in the administration. The prioritization on filling the top Al and data related leadership position in DoD will enable the Department to better accelerate and scale the adoption of data, analytics, and Al in line with the Secretary’s priorities.” 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 General Services Administration is not happy with the top-10 consulting firms it asked back in February to self-identify contracts that could be terminated to save the federal government money, going as far as to call their efforts under the initiative “insulting.” Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, wrote in a letter to those 10 firms, viewed by FedScoop, that GSA and its contracting partners are “unanimously unimpressed” with the cost savings those contractors identified in the so-called “scorecards” they submitted after the agency called for the termination of government contracts with those top consultants. As a result, the agency is calling on those firms to submit a second “waste review” by 5 p.m. ET on Friday with their proposals demonstrating how they can “lean into developing taxpayer friendly pricing” with “dramatic price reductions.” “In good faith, and with high expectation, we offered firms the opportunity to join us in reducing wasteful spending and do their part in addressing the twin issues of the federal debt and deficit,” Gruenbaum wrote. “The efforts to propose meaningful cost savings were wholly insufficient, to the point of being insulting.” The Labor Department’s new chief information officer is looking to reduce staff in the Office of the CIO by about 30%, according to a source within the agency. Hundreds of people currently work in Labor’s CIO office, but leadership is hoping many workers will voluntarily leave the team. Thomas Shedd, who was appointed to Labor’s CIO role last month, is optimistic that the goal will be achieved through the federal government’s deferred resignation programs and reduction-in-force efforts, the source said. Going forward, Labor’s Office of the CIO plans to focus on systems used to disburse benefits, as well as programs required by law that need business systems and software to work, according to documents viewed by FedScoop. There will also be an emphasis on efficiency and consolidating systems while providing value, the documents said. The department told employees that they’re not “tracking” staff, despite media reports, and that the agency is only interested in measuring results. 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 Trump administration has decided to terminate the IRS’s Direct File program, according to a source familiar with the situation, putting an end to the free electronic filing system that congressional Republicans and the tax preparation industry have had in their crosshairs since its creation. Work on Direct File began during Joe Biden’s presidency, bringing together some of the administration’s top technical and product minds and tapping into funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. Providing all U.S. taxpayers with a free filing tool would have put the country in line with most developed nations. But despite what the IRS considered to be a successful launch last year, Direct File’s future was murky after President Donald Trump’s election and the administration’s welcoming of Elon Musk’s DOGE into the government tech world. The pending elimination of the free filing tool was celebrated Wednesday by the makers of TurboTax. Derrick Plummer, an Intuit spokesman, called Direct File “a solution in search of a problem, a drain on critical IRS resources and a waste of taxpayer dollars.” Consumer advocate groups panned the Trump administration’s decision. Susan Harley, managing director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, said in a statement that scrapping Direct File “is almost literally taking money out of our pockets.” Dean Ball, a policy scholar with a focus on the intersection of history, political theory, policy and technology, is joining the Trump administration as a senior policy advisor on artificial intelligence and emerging technology, he announced Tuesday on the social media platform X. Ball said in his post of joining the Office of Science and Technology Policy: “It is a thrill and honor to serve my country in this role and work alongside the tremendous team [OSTP Director Michael Kratsios] has built.” He comes to OSTP from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he has served as a research fellow for the past year. Ball is also the author of an AI-focused blog called Hyperdimensional, in which he has defended the AI Safety Institute and commented on the Trump administration’s terminations of probationary employees, saying the move had unintended consequences. Ball also wrote recently that he is interested in AI being built at the same time that the Trump administration and Republicans “seek to advance theories of a ‘unitary executive’ — the notion that the president exercises the powers granted to him by the Constitution and Congress absolutely.” 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 Internal Revenue Service’s chief information officer is leaving the tax agency this month, the latest in an increasingly long line of veteran IT leaders exiting the government amid President Donald Trump’s gutting of the federal workforce. Rajiv Uppal told IT staffers in a Monday email, obtained by FedScoop, that he had “decided to depart” the tax agency, and that his last day will be April 28. Kaschit Pandya, the agency’s chief technology officer, will take over as acting CIO “while leadership finalizes long-term plans for the role,” Uppal wrote. President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders Tuesday to revamp the federal procurement and contracting processes, part of the administration’s sweeping takedown of government regulations. The procurement order takes aim at the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which the White House says has evolved “into an excessive and overcomplicated regulatory framework and resulting in an onerous bureaucracy.” To “create the most agile, effective, and efficient procurement system possible,” Trump’s EO calls for the removal of “undue barriers” and “unnecessary regulations” in procurement. 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.