The Daily Scoop Podcast

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.

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.

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.

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.

The NSA’s former top cybersecurity official told Congress on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s attempts to mass fire probationary federal employees will be “devastating” for U.S. cybersecurity operations. In testimony to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Rob Joyce, the former NSA cybersecurity director who retired from government service last year, warned lawmakers that countering Chinese hacking campaigns against critical infrastructure will require top-level cybersecurity talent at the NSA and other government agencies. Joyce said that part of that is having expertise and capacity in the government, raising “grave concerns that the aggressive threats to cut U.S. government probationary employees will have a devastating impact on the cybersecurity and our national security.” Joyce, who spent 34 years at the NSA, emphasized how important those employees are in sustaining an aggressive stance against China in cyberspace. A federal appeals body within the executive branch issued an order Wednesday to temporarily reinstate thousands of fired probationary workers in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in what advocates hailed as an important win for fired employees. The decision from the Merit Systems Protection Board, a quasi-judicial body within the government, grants a Friday request from the Office of Special Council, an independent government investigator, to stay the termination of an unnamed former employee and over 5,000 others who were similarly situated. The decision from MSPB also comes on the heels of another win for fired probationary workers in federal district court in San Francisco. U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted temporary, limited relief to pause and rescind those firings at several agencies, finding that OPM likely unlawfully directed the firing of those agency workers. That order has similarly prompted reinstatements. Since the court decision, the National Science Foundation moved to reinstate its fired federal probationary workers, citing the federal courts and updated guidance from the Office of Personnel Management. 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.

Since the Trump administration took office Jan. 20, federal technology has become an essential element in the national news cycle. Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have burrowed within agencies to gain access to key federal IT systems as part of their work to drive efficiency and cut waste and abuse. And as part of that, the Trump administration has fired huge swaths of the federal workforce. For the FedScoop news team, this has meant some major changes to the way they cover and deliver the news to the federal IT community. On this episode, the team gets together for a conversation about how they’re approaching this new normal, the stories they’re following, what’s ahead and how readers can get in touch to share their stories. The Office of Personnel Management said in a Tuesday revision to existing guidance that it’s not instructing other federal agencies to take personnel actions with respect to probationary employees. “Please note that, by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees,” the new language in the revised memo reads. “Agencies have ultimate decisionmaking authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions.” The update follows a decision last week from a federal judge in San Francisco granting temporary, limited relief to pause and rescind those firings at several agencies. In making that ruling, U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that OPM’s original Jan. 20 memo on federal probationary workers and its other related efforts likely unlawfully directed the firing of those agency workers. OPM “does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees within another agency,” Alsup said during a hearing Feb. 27. As Salt Typhoon and other hacking groups continue targeting U.S. telecoms, a bipartisan bill that cleared a key House panel Tuesday aims to formalize a more cyber-focused role for the federal agency focused on those wireless networks. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration Organization Act would establish an Office of Policy Development and Cybersecurity within the Commerce Department’s NTIA under legislation from Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Jennifer McClellan, D-Va. The bill, which advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was passed by the chamber last year but stalled out in the Senate. The NTIA advises the president on telecommunications and information policy issues, with a specific focus on the expansion of broadband internet and spectrum. Obernolte, who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee on research and technology, said the bill “addresses a critical gap” by formalizing NTIA’s cybersecurity role to better “safeguard our communication networks.” 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.

Weeks after being named the chief information security officer for the Defense Department, Katie Arrington was announced Monday as the Pentagon’s official “Performing the Duties of the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer.” The DOD Office of the CIO announced the move by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to place Arrington as the acting CIO in a post on LinkedIn. The post also confirmed that Leslie Beavers, who had been acting CIO since John Sherman left the role last June, will return to her primary role as principal deputy CIO. A defense official confirmed Arrington started in the role Monday. An organization that’s filed multiple legal challenges against the Trump administration is focusing its attention on the potential use of artificial intelligence in personnel decisions. Democracy Forward, a social welfare organization, said Monday it “launched a public records investigation” into the administration’s AI use, including filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a written statement that the American people deserve to know what is going on — including if and how artificial intelligence is being used to reshape the departments and agencies people rely on daily. The organization’s requests come after reporting by NBC that Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency planned to use AI to review employee responses to the Office of Personnel Management’s “five bullets” email. 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 has eliminated its 18F program, an internal team of tech consultants and engineers that develops open-source tools to improve digital services across the federal government. The announcement, which came over the weekend, is the latest in the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to slash the federal workforce. The move was foreshadowed weeks ago when Elon Musk, who’s become become the figurehead for the Trump administration’s slashing of government programs and the federal workforce, tweeted that the decade-old program had been “deleted.” Early Saturday morning, Thomas Shedd — a mechanical engineer and former Tesla employee recently appointed as the director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, which houses 18F — announced the program had been eliminated as part of the ongoing reduction-in-force effort, according to an email viewed by FedScoop. A GSA spokesperson also confirmed the terminations to FedScoop on Saturday, writing in an email that members of the 18F office were notified that they had been identified as part of GSA’s Reduction in Force and reorganization plan and were being separated from federal service. The top-10 highest-paid consulting firms contracting with the federal government are set to make “$65 billion in fees” in 2025 and beyond, the General Services Administration says. But according to the agency’s acting leader, that “needs to, and must, change.” GSA acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian issued last week a memo, obtained by FedScoop, calling for the termination of contracts with those top-contracted consultants: Deloitte Consulting LLP, Accenture Federal Services LLC, General Dynamics IT, Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, Guidehouse, Hill Mission Technologies Corp., Science Applications International Corp., CGI Federal and IBM. Ehikian wrote in the memo dated Feb. 26 sent to senior procurement officers: “Consistent with the goals and directives of the Trump administration to eliminate waste, reduce spending, and increase efficiency, the U.S. General Services Administration has taken the first steps in a Government-wide initiative to eliminate non-essential consulting contracts.” By March 7, agencies are asked to provide a list of contracts with the 10 firms that they intend to terminate as well as those they will maintain. 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.