One of the things that I'm hoping to do a better job on is getting people from the private sector-who've been in the private sector their whole career-who also spend a couple years in government at some point in their career, and learn something.
Rhyne's attack involved unauthorized remote desktop sessions, deletion of network administrator accounts, and changing of passwords, showcasing significant security vulnerabilities.
HHS Chief Information Officer Clark Minor stated that consolidating the CTO, CDO, and CAIO roles within his office allows the department to move faster on shared platforms and protect systems more effectively.
Among the 189 CDO and other data leader respondents to the annual survey conducted by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Data Foundation, about 40% said they had lost six or more employees last year.
Doing so has failed to prioritize agency internal control processes to adequately protect American taxpayer dollars, leading to documented examples of widespread abuse. Prior versions of OMB's guidance have overly deferred to the direction and priorities of external entities whose views are not binding on the Executive Branch, such as the Government Accountability Office.
I'm here on this panel today answering your questions as the inspector general. I hope if you are indeed doing this that you do resign. I am well aware of the Hatch Act. The inspector general is currently heading an investigation into both Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who is accused of committing travel fraud and having an affair with her bodyguard, and the secretary's husband Shawn DeRemer, who allegedly assaulted at least two female department employees.
Understanding the difference in purpose Unlike private businesses, which exist to make a profit, public institutions are designed to create impact - especially social and economic outcomes that benefit everyone, not just paying customers. A public agency doesn't measure its success in revenue or margins, but in how much it improves lives, builds equity and maintains public trust. This doesn't mean budgets and spending don't matter - they absolutely do - but money is not the goal. It's the tool.
Enforcement of environmental laws against major polluters has virtually ground to a halt under the Trump administration, a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency records from January 2025 to January 2026 shows. Major polluters typically include companies that are among the largest in the oil, gas, coal and chemical industries. Records show the EPA filed just one Clean Air Act consent decree compared with 26 in the first year of Trump's first term, and 22 during Biden's first year.
Watching how much the team was able to get done quickly was "astonishing," said Mikey Dickerson, a senior advisor for the Tech Viaduct. Those behind Tech Viaduct say that Elon Musk's team caused harm that will take years to undo, but it also showed how much can get done in government when you have the force of political will behind you.
In response to a question from Nextgov/FCW about how the initiative is helping to bring more AI tools into government, GSA Chief AI Officer and Data Scientist Zach Whitman said that, for those "wanting to see some level of adoption for experimentation purposes on low-risk use cases, this has provided a procurement pathway for a lot of these agencies who may have had early, light contact with some of these technologies."
Permanent-residency applications from more than seventy countries have been frozen, naturalization ceremonies cancelled. When spouses of U.S. citizens have shown up for routine green-card interviews, they've been arrested; others in the middle of applying for their legal status are getting detained and, in some cases, deported outright. The agency is beginning a sweeping campaign to denaturalize large numbers of citizens, aiming to strip them of their legal status; officials have monthly quotas for how many cases they must flag for review.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued Memorandum M-26-05 (PDF) which officially revokes the 2022 policy known as M-22-18 and its 2023 companion policy, M-23-16. This reversal alters the governance landscape for enterprise architects and platform engineers who service federal contracts or align with federal standards. The previous directives mandated specific secure software development practices, including the widespread generation and maintenance of Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs).
The White House on Friday rescinded a 2022 order that mandated a single, standardized self-attestation form for federal agencies to obtain cybersecurity assurances from software vendors, arguing the policy hindered agencies from adopting security solutions for their specific system needs. "There is no universal, one-size-fits-all method of achieving that result," Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in the memo released Friday. "Each agency should validate provider security utilizing secure development principles and based on a comprehensive risk assessment."
[Pam Bondi] said the [Weaponization Working Group] would focus on investigations into Trump conducted by former special counsel Jack Smith and his staff; Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James; and any "improper" investigations into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. But after a year, the group has not produced anything publicly.
