In ‘unusual arrangement,’ Rhodes continues to drive FAR overhaul

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<p>Kevin Rhodes may have stepped down as the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in September, but that doesn’t mean he’s out of government.</p>
<p>Federal News Network has confirmed that Rhodes is now a special government employee continuing to work on two key administration acquisition reform initiatives: the overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the update to the regulations that govern cost accounting standards (CAS).</p>
<p>Multiple sources in and out of government confirm Rhodes is participating in meetings and leading these efforts under this new title.</p>
<p>Rhodes <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/people/2026/08/rhodes-to-exit-as-ofpp-administrator/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">stepped down at OFPP administrator</a> on Sept. 4 after 18 months at the Office of Management and Budget and 11 months after the Senate confirmed him.</p>

<figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5601088" class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_5601088" style="width: 300px"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-5601088" height="300" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-300x300.jpg" srcset="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-300x300.jpg 300w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-150x150.jpg 150w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-768x768.jpg 768w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-500x500.jpg 500w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-112x112.jpg 112w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-120x120.jpg 120w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-240x240.jpg 240w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-485x485.jpg 485w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-60x60.jpg 60w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-70x70.jpg 70w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-600x600.jpg 600w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-400x400.jpg 400w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes-200x200.jpg 200w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kevin-Rhodes.jpg 800w" width="300"/><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-5601088">Kevin Rhodes stepped down as OFPP administrator in September, but stayed on as a special government employee.</figcaption></figure>
<p>A government official familiar with the circumstances, who requested anonymity to talk about OMB’s decision, confirmed Rhodes was asked to stay on because the FAR overhaul and the update to CAS are important priorities for the administration.</p>
<p>“The request was made by the White House to carry these priorities across the finish line,” the official said. “This is viewed as a positive thing because it keeps the continuity around these priorities. These are things that need the attention they deserve.”</p>
<p>Multiple emails to OMB seeking comment about Rhodes’ status were not returned.</p>
<p>It’s also unclear who is acting OFPP administrator since Rhodes stepped down.</p>
<p>Former federal acquisition officials say Rhodes’ decision to leave OFPP but remain a special government employee is disappointing, highly unusual and somewhat frustrating.</p>
<p>Sources praised Rhodes for his time as OFPP administrator as he was effective, knowledgeable and drove significant change.</p>
<p>“Rhodes did a lot as OFPP administrator. We shouldn’t forget that. He really was a transformative OFPP administrator, so it’s hard for many of us to understand why he stepped back,” said one former federal acquisition official, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution from the administration. “It’s an unusual arrangement for sure. Usually, special government employees is used when you can’t get someone confirmed or they are there only for a short amount of time. During the Biden administration, the Senate never took up the potential OFPP nominee and they ended up as a senior advisor for two years. But in this case, the Trump administration got someone confirmed and they stepped down. There is now no accountability and much less transparency on what Kevin is doing.”</p>

<h2>More questions than answers</h2>
<p>Another former federal acquisition executive echoed the first source’s concerns, calling it a “really odd arrangement” and one that they have never seen in 30 years in government.</p>
<p>Sources say there are several reasons why Rhodes stepped away from the OFPP leadership role, including the desire to work from Florida on a full-time basis. He was commuting between Washington and Florida for much of the past two years.</p>
<p>The second source said that fact makes this decision even more frustrating, “given the federal return to work rules, [it’s] a double standard and a half.”</p>
<p>The first source added the set-up also raises a lot of questions, particularly around who is overseeing the OFPP staff, who is listening to industry concerns and who the administration allows to testify on Capitol Hill about all the changes to federal procurement.</p>
<p>“Is the administration saying OFPP doesn’t need to be a Senate-confirmed position anymore with this set up?” the source asked. “This seems to be a well-known secret but OMB is not saying anything about it. If he is responsible for these initiatives, shouldn’t people know?”</p>
<p>The sources say since agency participation in both the FAR overhaul and the CAS reform efforts are crucial, losing the Senate-confirmed leaders could delay progress.</p>
<p>“You have great convening authority as OFPP administrator. The administrator is the chairman of the FAR council and being in a Senate-confirmed role, there are statutory authorities that come with that position,” the first source said. “SGEs only have the authorities given to them by someone else. If he’s seen aligned with the OMB deputy director for management, that gives him the ability to work in that function. But he may not be as effective in negotiating with undersecretaries or deputy secretaries, or even with the GSA or NASA administrator because he isn’t a Senate-confirmed leader anymore.”</p>
<p>A third former government acquisition executive added while Rhodes demonstrated a clear commitment to strengthening the federal acquisition system, modernizing procurement and improving the workforce, the community of agencies, industry partners and nonprofit organizations need sustained leadership as they navigate a period of significant policy reform and operational transition.</p>
<p>“The federal acquisition community benefits when there is stability, clear direction and a consistent vision that supports the effective implementation of reforms and maintains confidence among stakeholders,” the former official said. “At a time when the federal acquisition system is undergoing profound transformation, leadership continuity is not merely beneficial, it is essential to maintaining momentum, providing clarity and ensuring that reforms achieve their intended outcomes.”</p>

<h2>SGEs are a popular tool</h2>
<p>A special government employee is someone who can only serve for no more than 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days.</p>
<p>“SGEs are often recruited because they provide outside expertise or perspectives that might be unavailable among an agency’s regular employees. SGEs are generally used as advisory committee members, individual experts or consultants. However, some SGEs serve on boards or commissions and are brought on as per applicable statute,” a <a href="https://ethics.od.nih.gov/what-special-government-employee-sge" rel="noopener" target="_blank">SGE fact sheet</a> from the National Institutes of Health states.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has made significant use of SGEs, with its most famous one being Elon Musk.</p>
<p>The Office of Government Ethics says in a report on its <a href="https://www.oge.gov/web/OGE.nsf/0/27B41CC5978F68EC85258DF60055D804/$FILE/U.S._OGE_Annual%20Agency%20Ethics%20Program%20Questionnaire%20(CY25).pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank">2025 ethics questionnaire</a> that 71 agencies reported 33,470 special government employees served during calendar year 2025.  Additionally, OGE says 95% serve on federal advisory committees, boards and commissions and most serve for 60 days or less.</p>
<p>The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said in a May 1, 2025, <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/unprecedented-use-of-special-government-employees-raises-serious-ethical-concerns" rel="noopener" target="_blank">blog post</a> that the administration’s use of SGEs has “created a significant potential for corruption and abuse of power across the federal government.”</p>
<p>“Congress created the SGE category in 1962 to encourage outside experts to provide temporary services to the government, without requiring them to end their private engagements to comply with the strict conflict-of-interest rules for regular federal employees. Agencies have used SGEs on a temporary basis with or without compensation to provide advice and technical assistance on a wide range of specialized topics,” CBPP says.</p>
<p>It’s unclear if Rhodes will be around to bring the FAR overhaul completely across the finish line. The update to the cost accounting standards is much further along.</p>
<p>OFPP issued the <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition-policy/2026/07/ofpp-reduces-modernizes-another-50-year-old-acquisition-policy/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">final rule</a> for the CAS update in July that eliminated 68 of the 72 individual requirements and removed over 10,000 words of regulatory text. The final rule took effect on Aug. 7. It will be significant for contractors as the final rule will reduce the number of vendors who have to use these accounting standards by half. Contracts can now rely on standard commercial practices outlined in the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for measuring and assigning costs for compensated personal leave, capitalization and depreciation of capital assets and acquisition costs of material.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.acquisition.gov/far-overhaul/far-part-deviation-guide" rel="noopener" target="_blank">FAR overhaul</a> has a long way to go as the council released the <a href="https://advocacy.sba.gov/2026/09/21/far-council-releases-second-set-of-proposed-rules-under-the-revolutionary-far-overhaul/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">second tranche of changes</a> for comments in September with comments due Oct.19.</p>
<p>The first set of <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition-policy/2026/06/first-17-parts-of-the-far-move-into-formal-rulemaking-process/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">FAR updates came out in June</a> and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at OMB continues to review and make changes.</p>
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Pulte’s FHFA slashes mortgage fraud watchdog’s budget

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<p>The Federal Housing Finance Agency inspector general’s office is warning last-minute budget cuts imposed by FHFA Director Bill Pulte will force the OIG to slash staff by up to 80% and discontinue the office’s longtime mission of investigating mortgage fraud.</p>
<p>Congressional Democrats are now calling on Pulte to resign over the move, calling it unlawful in an Oct. 1 bicameral <a href="https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-joins-joint-statement-on-bill-pulte-shutting-down-fhfa-watchdog">statement</a>.</p>
<p>In a Sept. 30 <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FHFA-OIG%20Funding%20Notification%20Letter%20to%20Congress%2009.30.26.pdf">notification</a> to Congress, the IG’s office said FHFA has decided to allocate $20 million for the OIG in fiscal 2027, representing a 61.3% reduction from its fiscal 2026 funding levels.</p>
<p>The Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget requested transmitted to Congress in the spring had included a $55 million funding level for the FHFA OIG.  But on Aug. 31, one month before fiscal 2027 began, FHFA leadership notified the OIG of the reduced funding allocation decision.</p>

<p>“Simply stated, funding at the $20 million level will eliminate our capacity to effectively conduct criminal investigation of mortgage, bank, and other fraud schemes involving the entities FHFA regulates,” James Hodge, acting principal deputy inspector general at the FHFA OIG, wrote to lawmakers in the letter.</p>
<p>Hodge is performing the duties of the FHFA Inspector General after the White House <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/watchdog-being-ousted-us-housing-regulator-involved-trump-crackdown-sources-say-2025-11-03/">terminated</a> the agency’s previous acting IG, Joe Allen, last year. His firing is among <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/podcast/federal-newscast-podcast/new-data-shows-impact-of-fired-igs/">a string of 19 inspectors general</a> fired by President Donald Trump since he retook office in January 2025.</p>
<p>The new funding cut would force the FHFA OIG to reduce staffing by 70-80%, resulting in the “the discontinuance of essentially all criminal investigations conducted by our Office of Investigations,” Hodge told lawmakers.</p>
<p>Mark Greenblatt, who served as the Interior Department’s IG and was among more than a dozen fired by Trump in January 2025, said the situation is a “five-alarm fire” for independent oversight.</p>
<p>“This is another unprecedented move by this administration in the evisceration of the inspector general community,” Greenblatt said.</p>
<p>The FHFA and its OIG are not funded through the congressional appropriations process. Instead,  the<br/>
Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 stipulates that they are funded through assessments collected from regulated entities, including Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac).</p>
<p>Hodge noted that until this past month, the FHFA has always provided the OIG with its requested allocation.</p>

<p>The FHFA, in a Sept. 30 news release, said the budget allocation was made to ensure the agency’s OIG was “peer-matched” to other OIGs across government.</p>
<p>“FHFA fully supports the independence and mission of the Office of Inspector General,” the agency wrote in the news release. “FHFA will continue to work in good faith with FHFA OIG to ensure all funds are appropriately justified.”</p>
<p>The agency’s news release claims that the FHFA OIG requested budget represents roughly 16% of the FHFA’s total operating budget, while the average inspector general budget allocation ratio is roughly 2%.</p>
<p>But Greenblatt said that was comparing “apples to oranges,” given that many IG’s offices have a much narrower mission than the FHFA OIG’s remit.</p>
<p>“Many of the IG’s don’t have that outward facing mission and therefore are much smaller,” Greenblatt said.</p>
<p>Jay Lerner, who served as IG at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, agreed that OIGs such as FHFA’s have a much different mission than other offices that only focus on internal agency matters.</p>
<p>“It’s hard to make those apples-to-apples comparisons, because some IG offices handle more technical issues that may require specialized expertise, staffing, and resources to conduct audits and evaluations of complex financial programs, and to investigate sophisticated housing, banking, and economic crimes,” Lerner told Federal News Network.</p>
<p>Hodge, in his letter to lawmakers, noted that the FHFA OIG’s budget methodology is based on overseeing not just the FHFA, but also the entities that are regulated by the agency: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, U.S. Financial Technology, LLC (U.S. FinTech), and the 11 Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs).</p>
<p>Those entities, Hodge noted, have a combined asset total exceeding $7.8 trillion, with the FHFA OIG being the “primary law enforcement entity responsible for ensuring that mortgage fraud in this market is investigated and prosecuted.”</p>

<p>“Taking into account FHFA’s distinct and extensive conservatorship authority, and the enormous risks to the U.S. financial system inherent in the operations of the regulated entities, OIG’s benchmark for staffing and funding is not, as is the case with most federal OIGs, based on a ratio to the staffing and budget of the parent establishment, FHFA,” Hodge wrote.</p>
<p>Historically, Hodge wrote that the IG’s office had applied a budget formulation of about 1% of the combined operating budgets and staffing of those entities, along with the FHFA. In recent years, the ratio of the OIG’s budget benchmark has fallen “substantially below 1% without having a significant adverse effect on our operational capacity,” Hodge wrote.</p>
<p>The office’s special agent cadre has numbered “around 40 agents” in recent years, along with three Special Assistant United States Attorneys who prosecute mortgage fraud and other crimes.</p>
<p>Hodge said the IG office’s criminal enforcement program has resulted in more than 1,270 convictions and nearly $75 billion in “monetary results” since 2011.</p>
<p>But under the budget cuts pushed by Pulte, the FHFA IG’s office will have to end support to ongoing criminal investigations “as soon as feasible,” as well as cease efforts to support the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, according to Hodge.</p>
<p>Hodge said the IG’s office has now begun the process of implementing a reduction-in-force.</p>
<p>He wrote that the IG’s office will also terminate its criminal investigations program and cut staff within the Office of Investigations to “the minimum amount of personnel necessary to conduct investigations limited to the conduct of FHFA personnel, which historically have been exclusively administrative in nature, and maintain our statutorily required hotline.”</p>
<p>In an Oct. 1 <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2026.10.01%20Letter%20to%20FHFA%20re%20FHFA%20OIG%20Budget.pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank">letter</a> to Pulte, Democrats on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs demanded that he reverse course and institute a budget in line with the FHFA OIG’s request.</p>
<p>“Your decision is unacceptable and yet another example of this administration’s willingness to flout the law and evade accountability,” they wrote. “It also indicates that FHFA is uninterested in finding and eliminating mortgage fraud – an issue that you have repeatedly claimed to prioritize at FHFA.”</p>
<p>In addition to firing IGs, the Trump administration has also taken aim at the Council on Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). The Office of Management and Budget last September announced it would not apportion funding for CIGIE, before <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/agency-oversight/2025/11/omb-reverses-course-on-defunding-cigie/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">reversing course and releasing some funding</a> for the council’s activities.</p>
<p>“They’re clearly taking unilateral action where they can and that to me sets a very troubling precedent,” Greenblatt said.</p>
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Pentagon wants states to bid on the ‘next great American base’

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<ul><li style="margin-top:20px;">The Pentagon wants to build a new military base inside the United States and is asking states to compete for it. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the base could host up to 25,000 troops and serve as a hub for homeland defense, command and control and cyber operations. He also promises the base will feature cutting-edge technology, first-class barracks and timeless classical architecture. The base would become the first newly built domestic military installation since the 1980s. A plan for that process is due by the end of October.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://media.defense.gov/2026/Sep/30/2004009306/-1/-1/1/NEXT-GREAT-AMERICAN-BASE.PDF">Pentagon wants states to bid on the 'next great American base'</a> - Defense Department)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">A new House bill would require the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop detailed workforce plans. The Federal Emergency Mobilization Accountability Workforce Planning Act would require FEMA to update a human capital operating plan every three years. The bill would also require the plan be submitted to congressional committees. The legislation, proposed by Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee, comes after FEMA has lost roughly 5,000 employees since January 2025. The Government Accountability Office recently reported that FEMA allowed those cuts to happen without any planning, potentially reducing the agency’s readiness to respond to major disasters.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://democrats-homeland.house.gov/news/legislation/reps-carter-ezell-thompson-introduce-the-fema-workforce-planning-act-to-ensure-the-federal-government-has-capacity-for-disaster-response">Federal Emergency Mobilization Accountability Workforce Planning Act </a> - House Homeland Security Committee Democrats)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to build an artificial intelligence-powered software factory. In a request for information posted Tuesday, ICE said it’s seeking responses from companies capable of providing AI, data and technology strategy services. Part of that work will include maintaining ICE’s existing capabilities, including generative AI chatbots and other AI applications. But the agency also wants to build out what it’s calling an enterprise agentic software factory. <div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/da46dfbeeb3945bd87a5a0b2d84847bc/view">ICE enterprise AI, data and technology strategy</a> - SAM.gov)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">A federal judge is ordering the Bureau of Prisons to restore its collective bargaining agreement. The decision comes about a year after the BOP terminated its contract with the American Federation of Government Employees. AFGE sued the agency, arguing that the decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the First Amendment. The judge's ruling this week comes in one of several lawsuits against agencies that have canceled collective bargaining agreements.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://www.afge.org/globalassets/documents/bop/afge-pi-order_bop.pdf">BOP ordered to restore collective bargaining contract</a> - Federal News Network)</div></li><p></p>

<li style="margin-top:20px;">Federal employees and retirees will once again see health insurance costs rise next year. Starting in January, enrollees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program will see premiums increase by an average of nearly 11%. The rising premium rate for 2027 marks the third year in a row of double-digit premium increases in FEHB. Postal program participants, on the other hand, are set for a 8.2% premium hike next year. After releasing more information about the upcoming plan year, the Office of Personnel Management also encouraged participants to take advantage of this fall’s Open Season, which begins Nov. 9.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/open-season/2026/09/federal-health-insurance-enrollees-will-pay-10-9-more-on-average-toward-premiums-in-2027/">Federal health insurance enrollees will pay 10.9% more, on average, toward premiums in 2027</a> - Federal News Network)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">The Pentagon will create an Autonomous Warfare Command to oversee the use of drones in combat. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a four-star general will lead the command, which lawmakers have already proposed in the annual defense policy bill. The new command was one of several changes Hegseth detailed in a speech to troops at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. The defense secretary also previewed a study on the future of war, led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House.  <div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2026/09/hegseth-looks-to-remake-the-military-from-generals-to-drones/">Hegseth looks to remake the military, from generals to drones</a> - Federal News Network)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">A new federal CIO is expected to be named soon. Carter Farmer will be named the new federal chief information officer. Multiple sources confirmed that President Donald Trump is planning to appoint Farmer, who spent the last 16 months as the CIO at the Environmental Protection Agency, to the top technology role. Multiple requests for comment to the Office of Management and Budget were not returned. Farmer would replace Greg Barbaccia, who left in August after 19 months in the role. Before joining the EPA, Farmer spent seven years at the U.S. Institute for Peace, where he was the director of IT systems and solutions. He also worked in technology roles at Amtrak, Telarix, a voice and messaging company, and Digital Intelligence Systems (DISYS), a technology consulting firm. EPA posted a vacancy for its CIO position on Sept. 28. <div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/cio-news/2026/09/epas-farmer-to-be-new-federal-cio/">EPA's Carter to become new federal CIO</a> - Federal News Network)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">Michael Lynch, the deputy administrator of the General Services Administration, is leaving federal service. Lynch has been with GSA for about 20 months and became deputy administrator in March 2025. Ed Forst, the GSA administrator, said in an email to staff that Lynch will return to the private sector. Lynch played a key role in improving GSA's internal operations and promoting the adoption of technologies like artificial intelligence. He led the “million hours challenge” for GSA staff to use its internal AI tool USAi to automate a portion of their work. Before coming to GSA, Lynch worked in the biotech, aerospace and consumer electronics industries. Before joining GSA, he served as the CEO of Zedsen, a U.K.-based medical diagnostic business that uses AI for early cancer detection.    <div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://www.gsa.gov/about-gsa/newsroom/news-releases">GSA deputy administrator Lynch to leave federal service</a> - General Services Administration)</div></li><p></p></ul>
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EPA’s Farmer to be new federal CIO

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<p>Carter Farmer will be named the new federal chief information officer.</p>
<p>Multiple sources confirmed that President Donald Trump is planning to appoint Farmer, who spent the last 16 months as the CIO at the Environmental Protection Agency.</p>
<figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6065123" class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_6065123" style="width: 300px"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-6065123" height="300" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-300x300.jpeg" srcset="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-768x768.jpeg 768w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-500x500.jpeg 500w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-112x112.jpeg 112w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-120x120.jpeg 120w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-240x240.jpeg 240w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-485x485.jpeg 485w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-60x60.jpeg 60w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-70x70.jpeg 70w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-400x400.jpeg 400w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer-200x200.jpeg 200w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/carter-farmer.jpeg 800w" width="300"/><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-6065123">Carter Farmer is expected to be appointed as the next federal CIO.</figcaption></figure>
<p>Multiple requests for comment to the Office of Management and Budget were not returned.</p>
<p>FedScoop first reported that Carter would be the new federal CIO.</p>

<p>Farmer would replace Greg Barbaccia, who <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/cio-news/2026/07/federal-cio-barbaccia-leaving-in-august/">left in Augus</a>t after 19 months in the role.</p>
<p>Before <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/cio-news/2025/05/federal-cio-outlines-16-operating-principles-for-it-leaders/">joining EPA</a>, Farmer spent seven years at the U.S. Institute for peace where he was the director of IT systems and solutions. He also worked in technology roles at Amtrak, Telarix, a voice and messaging company, and Digital Intelligence Systems (Disys), a technology consulting firm.</p>
<p>As Farmer takes over the top technology role in government, the Trump administration has laid out several IT priorities, including improving digital services for citizens, expanding the use of Login.gov across the government and driving increased use of artificial intelligence to meet mission needs. Barbaccia had also made transforming the authority to operate (ATO) process, refreshing the IT dashboard and continuing to hire new IT workers among his top priorities.</p>
<p>OMB recently<a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/cio-news/2026/05/flagg-is-the-new-federal-deputy-cio/"> named Thomas Flagg</a> as the new deputy federal CIO, meaning with the addition of Farmer, there will be total new leadership over federal technology at OMB.</p>
<p>EPA posted a <a href="https://www.usajobs.gov/job/886502000" rel="noopener" target="_blank">vacancy for its CIO position</a> on Sept. 28. Applications are due by Oct. 13. The person also will be EPA’s chief artificial intelligence officer. Jennie Campbell is EPA’s deputy CIO, but it’s unclear if she is now acting CIO.</p>
<p>EPA’s vacancy adds to a growing number of open CIO or deputy CIO positions. According to USAJobs, there currently are openings for a CIO at the Homeland Security Department and for the Marines Corps, for deputy CIO roles at the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Nuclear Safety Administration and Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Service and an assistant CIO at NOAA. Additionally, the Interior Department and FEMA are hiring new chief information security officers.</p>
<p>Additionally, the departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation and HHS as well as the Army also don’t have permanent CIOs.</p>

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How the Trump administration has been building toward the America.gov launch

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<p>The White House’s 18-month effort to improve federal services started with a focus on reducing the number of websites agencies managed.</p>
<p>It made a stop in this journey at Login.gov, and the effort culminated yesterday with the launch of <a href="https://america.gov/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">America.gov</a>.</p>
<p>In signing the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/09/streamlining-access-to-government-services-through-america-gov/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">executive order</a> yesterday, President Donald Trump established the latest iteration of a one-stop shop for all federal services that will be managed by the General Services Administration.</p>
<figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6063520" class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_6063520" style="width: 500px"><img alt="Trump" class="wp-image-6063520" height="333" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" src="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-300x200.jpg" srcset="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-300x200.jpg 300w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-768x512.jpg 768w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-1560x1040.jpg 1560w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-423x282.jpg 423w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-760x507.jpg 760w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-974x650.jpg 974w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-495x330.jpg 495w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-1880x1254.jpg 1880w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-260x174.jpg 260w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-170x114.jpg 170w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-360x240.jpg 360w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-600x400.jpg 600w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-180x120.jpg 180w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-90x60.jpg 90w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-560x374.jpg 560w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-727x485.jpg 727w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-280x187.jpg 280w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-130x87.jpg 130w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-120x80.jpg 120w, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Trump_65872-240x160.jpg 240w" width="500"/><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-6063520">President Donald Trump holds a signing ceremony, surrounded by cabinet members and others, during an event to mark the launch of the America.gov website, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)</figcaption></figure>
<p>“We actually started this project on day one. This is actually a very complex project. We actually started this almost on day one, and it took us that time to get the very complex subject matter made simple, and it is made simple, and also made beautiful. We’re making it dramatically easier and faster, and more convenient to get what you need exactly when you need it,” Trump said during the roll out of the platform. “For our entire lives, we’ve become used to a government so big it makes the citizen feel very, very small. But with America.gov, the entire U.S. government will fit … in the palm of your hand. A very simple plan that sits in the palm of your hand. Instead of forcing citizens to search through the endless maze of tens of thousands of terrible government websites and rules, and more than 10,000 forms. You have over 10,000 forms to do basic acts. You’ll now have one front door for every single question. Everything will be answered easily and quickly. A digital home built around your time and your life. You’ll save hours and hours, many hours, hundreds of hours, perhaps a year, depending on how much of that type of information you need. Simply ask for what you need, and America.gov will provide answers, and it will be provided immediately.”</p>

<p>The president’s EO, at a high level, directs every federal agency to make all of their public-facing services integrate directly with America.gov as soon as possible.</p>
<h2>More details coming from OMB</h2>
<p>More specifically, the Office of Management and Budget will issue an implementation memo within 90 days to give agencies more details about what that integration looks like.</p>
<p>The executive order calls on agencies to use and make public application programming interfaces, dashboards, and digital forms that already support services accessible through the America.gov platform and ensure integration with Login.gov.</p>
<p>GSA says in a release that it has engineered America.gov into a public-facing platform in record time, demonstrating the speed, technical excellence and mission focus of its engineering teams. The site will be housed in its Technology Transformation Services (TTS).</p>
<p>Joe Gebbia, the director of the National Design Studio at the White House, said agencies have been a part of the development of the site for many months.</p>
<p>“Under the hood, America.gov is extraordinary use of artificial intelligence designed to improve your life. It’s trained specifically on one official source of truth: the United States government. So thank you to all the agencies governmentwide, those 29,000 websites, 800 million pages, billions of pieces of information that are now available in one easy-to-use website for every American,” Gebbia said. “Let’s hear it for all the federal agencies that work hard every day on behalf of citizens. Thank you.”</p>
<p>Gebbia added that the moment the government publishes something new, the site is updated within minutes, ensuring citizens and others have the most up-to-date information.</p>

<p>This initial version of America.gov is a big search engine of sorts, but Gebbia said the administration has plans to expand it into something that’s a lot more.</p>
<h2>Moving from answers to actions</h2>
<p>Gebbia said the platform today includes all public government information.</p>
<p>“For the first time, there’s one place to get everything done across the entire government: 29,000 websites in one, enrollments, benefits, renewals, finish your lists without ever leaving the site. Need to enroll in Medicare? Check eligibility, compare plans, and apply directly on America.gov. Check in on a student loan? You can do it right on the site. Address change with the Postal Service, no stress. Serve the country and need to find care? Done in a few clicks. Go back to being a patriot,” he said. “For the first time, and this is incredibly cutting edge, your search on America.gov spans across multiple agencies and guides you on exactly what you need to do. Ask any question and get official answers only from government sources. This alone is a game changer, and it’s available to you starting today. But our vision for America.gov shouldn’t stop at just getting you the right information quickly. It should do it for you. So here’s a glimpse of what’s coming in 2027. The future of chat conversation will include an action. You’ll be able to change your name right on the platform. Let’s click start and see what happens. And just like that, America.gov goes to work. This would have taken weeks of your time, multiple filings, cutting across different agencies’ websites. That’s if you even knew where to start. So all you have to do is focus on what matters. Enter your new name, drop in your marriage certificate, and there you have it. In a few keystrokes, your name change is submitted. Enjoy the honeymoon.”</p>
<p>Gebbia emphasized that America.gov is private by design. He said it doesn’t keep users’ personal information or their conversations. Users are not required to log in to use it, and the platform doesn’t track its users, Gebbia added.</p>
<p>The White house said it has big plans for the platform for 2027 and beyond, moving America.gov from answers to actions.</p>
<p>“The site is like a good hotel concierge, guiding you to the best answers for your questions and to the next steps, such as a checklist with links to finish your name change at the state level. But let’s not stop there. You ever notice how you submit something on a government website, and you have no idea what happens next? You’re totally in the dark. So what if we did something really unexpected, and took it one step further? Since you logged in, when you go back to the home page, what if we just show you transparently where you are and what comes next? Our vision is that one day, this type of convenience and simplicity will be across every government service,” he said.</p>
<p>The journey to launching America.gov started in 2025 when OMB announced it would consolidate and/or eliminate federal websites. Former Federal Chief Information Officer Greg Barbaccia outlined his <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2026/01/federal-cio-outlines-one-government-blueprint-for-overhauling-digital-services/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">“one government” blueprint</a> to website design in January 2026, adding that “it’s jarring to the public when one agency’s digital experience is completely different than another agency.”</p>
<p>In July 2025, GSA’s <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2025/07/agencies-plan-to-decommission-hundreds-of-gov-websites-following-gsa-review/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">analysis of the 24 largest agencies</a> found more than 7,200 total websites and it had a goal of eliminating about 5%, or 332, of them.</p>
<h2>Building on the legacy of FirstGov, USA.gov</h2>
<p>The White House says the number of websites now stands at more than 29,000 across the entire government.</p>

<p>Under the umbrella of better services, the White House launched the National Design Studio in August 2025, which led the creation of several high-profile sites like trumpaccounts.gov and techforce.gov.</p>
<p>The other big piece to this is the <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2026/06/commerce-aims-to-cut-nearly-half-its-websites-amid-governmentwide-consolidation/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">OMB memo</a> mandating the use of Login.gov for most federal websites.</p>
<p>Previous administrations tried to create this type of one-stop shop. The Clinton administration launched the <a href="https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/new/html/Fri_Sep_22_124445_2000.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">FirstGov website</a> in September 2000 as “the first-ever U.S. Government web site that will provide the public with easy, one-stop access to all federal government on-line information and services.”</p>
<p>The George W. Bush administration transitioned FirstGov to <a href="https://www.legistorm.com/stormfeed/view_rss/345211/organization/33160/title/gsa-announces-usagov.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">USA.gov in January 2007</a>, with a goal of enabling “anyone, anytime, anywhere to find and understand the government services and information they seek.”</p>
<p>GSA says more than <a href="https://www.usa.gov/website-analytics" rel="noopener" target="_blank">5 million people visited USA.gov</a> in the last 30 days.</p>
<p>“America.gov is a declaration to the world that every citizen of our nation will be treated with respect and dignity,” Trump said. “They’re not going to be shut out by work that maybe doesn’t exist or paperwork that’s so complex that nobody can figure it out. For decades, Washington has paid enormous sums of taxpayer money to federal contractors to build terrible websites that pale in comparison to the experience that you’re used to in the private sector, and seriously compared to what we’ve built, we’ve built the finest anywhere in the world. There’s nothing like it.”</p>
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OMB violated Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act with $1 billion rescission

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<ul><li style="margin-top:20px;">The Government Accountability Office found OMB’s rescission of nearly $1 billion of approved spending on September 26, violated the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The decision marks not only the Trump administration’s 12th violation of the ICA since taking office in January 2025, but it was also the first ICA decision in a year from GAO. The latest ruling relies on previous conclusions that the OMB can’t use the Impoundment Control Act process to withhold funds past their date of expiration, in this case September 30. GAO says ICA provides that amounts proposed for rescission must be made available for obligation unless Congress completes action on a bill rescinding them. GAO says OMB’s actions subvert both the constitutional process and Congress’ power of the purse.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/b-338788">GAO says Trump administration now has a dozen Impoundment Act violations</a> - Government Accountability Office)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">The Office of Personnel Management says it’s saved $500 million combating fraud in the government’s health insurance programs. Most of those savings during 2025 came from claims that were either stopped or reduced, as well as billing and policy changes. A White House task force has been supporting OPM’s efforts to reduce fraudulent health insurance payments. The Government Accountability Office has previously found that OPM is spending up to $1 billion annually on ineligible insurance members.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://www.opm.gov/news/news-releases/white-house-fraud-task-force-and-opm-announce-more-than-dollar500-million-in-health-benefits-fraud-fighting/">More than $500 million in health benefits fraud-fighting </a> - Office of Personnel Management)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered military leaders to stop giving tenure to civilian faculty at America's service academies. Hegseth said in a memo Tuesday that appointing civilian professors to tenured roles has distracted cadets from their mission of lethality. Instead, the secretary told the armed forces to create new hiring plans that make the universities more flexible and grow their contributions to warfighting. Hegseth has cracked down on what he sees as "woke" ideology at military schools by banning books and ordering curriculum changes. <div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4613993/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-signs-directive-halting-tenured-civilian-position/">Hegseth halts tenure for civilian faculty at military service academies</a> - Department of Defense)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">A top White House official previewed landmark cyber incident reporting regulations. The final rule for the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act could be released any day. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is responsible for publishing the final rules. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross says a lot of work has gone into ensuring the final rules harmonize existing incident reporting requirements, rather than duplicating them. The regulations will cut across all 16 critical infrastructure sectors, requiring organizations to report major cyber incidents within 72 hours. <div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/cybersecurity/2026/09/white-house-cyber-leader-says-circia-will-harmonize-incident-reporting/">White House cyber leader says CIRCIA will harmonize incident reporting</a> - Federal News Network)</div></li><p></p>

<li style="margin-top:20px;">The Army has officially lifted its civilian hiring freeze, nearly 20 months after President Donald Trump imposed a governmentwide hiring freeze on his first day back in office. Army Undersecretary Michael Obadal said the Army can “now resume hiring to meet priority missions within budgetary constraints.” The Army said the hiring freeze “afforded the service the ability to make significant progress in optimizing and rebalancing” its civilian workforce. Approximately 43,000 people have left the Army since Trump returned to the White House on January 20, 2025. The governmentwide hiring freeze still remains in place.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2026/09/army-officially-lifts-hiring-freeze-resumes-civilian-hiring/">Army officially lifts hiring freeze, resumes civilian hiring </a> - Federal News Network)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">The Government Accountability Office says it can’t confirm whether select agencies had data security controls in place when their systems were accessed by Department of Government Efficiency teams. In a new report, GAO reviewed the access that six agencies provided to DOGE. Four agencies provided GAO with limited documentation on controls like training and background checks. Two agencies, the Small Business Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs, didn’t respond to GAO’s questions about DOGE access. GAO says it has ample authority to obtain information about DOGE’s work, despite agencies not fully responding to the watchdog’s requests for information. <div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108192">DOGE: Congress and the public lack assurance that systems and data were protected at multiple agencies</a> - Government Accountability Office)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">A federal union for Environmental Protection Agency employees is suing to restore its collective bargaining agreement. The American Federation of Government Employees alleges that EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the First Amendment when it terminated its union contract last August. The lawsuit also challenges EPA’s timing for canceling the agreement, coming just before the agency began disciplining employees who had signed a dissent letter against the Trump administration months earlier. “That was a big tell with regards to what they were waiting on to be able to do this without interference of the unions on behalf of these members,” AFGE Council 238 President Justin Chen said.
<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/unions/2026/09/union-sues-epa-over-termination-of-collective-bargaining-agreement/">Union sues EPA over termination of collective bargaining agreement</a> - Federal News Network)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">The Army Reserve has reached its recruiting goal for the first time in a decade. Army recruiters enlisted more than 14,300 soldiers for the reserve component this fiscal year. Last year, the Army brought in approximately 12,400 recruits. The service said it renewed its focus on Reserve recruiting this year, prioritizing vacancies and connecting recruits with opportunities that matched their skillsets.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="https://recruiting.army.mil/News/Article/4611934/beyond-the-recruiter-badge-army-recruitings-10-year-historic-breakthrough/">Army Reserve reaches its recruiting goal for the first time in a decade</a> - Army Recruiting Command)</div></li><p></p><li style="margin-top:20px;">The military will purge nearly 200 more of its top officers in a new round of cuts. The Pentagon is moving ahead with plans to cut 20% of general and admiral billets by January 1. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to announce the changes Wednesday at his State of the Force address in Quantico. The cuts could eliminate or downgrade about 170 positions across the military. Some of those jobs could go to colonels and Navy captains. Hegseth approved reduction plans earlier this month, but it's unclear how the armed forces will split the overall goal.<div style="display:block; font-style: italic;">(<a href="http://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2026/09/pentagon-to-cut-20-of-general-and-admiral-positions-by-jan-1/">Pentagon to cut 20% of general and admiral positions by January 1</a> - Federal News Network)</div></li><p></p></ul>


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Federal agencies are already making decisions about quantum computing

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<p><em>Interview transcript</em></p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Terry Gerton </strong>You are an expert in quantum computing. And every time I hear about quantum computing, it’s just around the corner, just around the corner just around the corner. Is there something that’s happening now that makes it like on this corner and not around the next corner?</p>
<p><strong>Victor Foulk </strong>Well, I’d argue it’s more than a planning issue today. It’s really become, in many ways, suddenly an execution issue. I think we’re loosely following a trajectory like the way we saw for artificial intelligence. With that, similar argument. AI had been researched since the ’50s, and then suddenly a confluence of new technological approaches, the availability of hyperscale compute and massive funding and regulations triggered what I’d say is a state shift in our world order. The various technologies underlying, you know, big Q quantum, have been evolving since the ’80s and are now strikingly similar in my eyes in terms of trajectory. If you look at the data, we’ve got innovators multiplying by leaps and bounds globally. We’ve got technological breakthroughs in compute and sensing that hit the headlines almost daily. And let’s be honest, the forecast for the security implications are more dire in the headlines than ever. Other data, in the U.S. Standards have arrived. NIST finalized post quantum encryption standards in August of ’24. And before that, prepare for quantum was just advice. Now it’s actual migration with specifications and a due date. Policies move from planning to doing. In June, two executive orders landed on the same day. One was pushing quantum innovation, the other securing against quantum cryptographic attacks. OMB followed closely after that with a memo emphasizing execution of migration, not just planning. And lastly, I’d say money has moved, a lot of it. In May, commerce signed letters of intent worth something on the order of $2 billion across nine companies and took equity stakes. Three of those were finalized just days ago and globally, billions and then billions more flowed into quantum investments. And that’s just the past couple of months. I think we’re pretty clearly at an inflection point.</p>

<p><strong>Terry Gerton </strong>I love the comparison to AI. I think about that exponential growth curve. Sounds like you’re saying we’re kind of at that near the curve or maybe on the upward slope there. But all of those things that you just talked about all say quantum, but when we talk about quantum, it’s not just a single technology, right? There are a whole bunch of different pieces in that. Help us unpack what the different pieces of a quantum strategy would be.</p>
<p><strong>Victor Foulk </strong>Absolutely. I mean, that’s always been a challenging aspect of this domain and that big Q quantum, as we call it, it’s always several different technologies. And let’s be honest, not all of them are quantum. We’ve got different maturity, different budgets, different owners and different timelines. And they’re separately, these are all separate work streams hiding under that one word. And practically that matters because you can’t fund a single monolithic quantum initiative. In terms of broad bucket categories, we’ve got quantum sensing. Which applies to leveraging the technology for timing, navigation, and detection. We’ve got computing, which is the machine that everyone glamorizes today. And then there’s post-quantum cryptography, which is protecting today’s systems against tomorrow’s machine, which isn’t quantum at all. It’s classical cryptography running on systems that agencies own today. And it’s designed to defend against the forecasted compute capability on the horizon. There’s no qubits anywhere in it. I’d say sensing is closest with fielded hardware. Computing is genuinely still early, though some modalities like annealing are supporting real workloads and ROI today, which we can talk about. But the most urgent priority for all of us is post-quantum or quantum-ready cryptography, because the harvest now decrypt later challenge is, it’s more than a buzzword. It’s a very real nation-state threat.</p>
<p><strong>Terry Gerton </strong>Tell us more about that because for people like me who can barely spell quantum, that part, I can get my head around. Harvest now, decrypt later.</p>
<p><strong>Victor Foulk </strong>We’re talking about this now because we’re almost definitely already late. The reality is encryption has to protect data for its entire useful life, not just today and not just in transit. Earlier in my career, I served as one of a small number of servants in government that, that had the unique authority to make original classification determinations, that’s identifying what must be legally withheld from the public for how long and why those are, those are decisions we sign our name to, and we do so based on real security risk and often with lives at The information that we’re talking about here, it’s classified for five, 10, 15, 25, or 50, or more years depending on the subject. And the reason for that is because the danger from compromise is real for that long. That means an adversary copying your encrypted traffic today doesn’t need to break it right now. They just need to to break it before it stops being important. Which means storage and prioritization are the only limitations for them between now and then. So for us, the right question isn’t, when does a quantum computer arrive? The question is really, how long do my secrets need to stay secret? And the reality is we’ve got billions of dollars and years of work to migrate ourselves out of this problem. On timing, I’d argue nobody credible is locking in the exact doomsday date, where this future computes gonna be a reality. But we all know that for some of the information we have to protect, it’s essentially already lost.</p>
<p><strong>Terry Gerton </strong>Victor Foulk is vice president of emerging technologies at CGI Federal. So Victor, I get that concept. You have to protect it for as long as it’s viable and important, but how do you protect something against a decryption technology that you can’t even imagine?</p>
<p><strong>Victor Foulk </strong>Well, that’s really where the mandates and the NIST requirements come into play. We have to migrate. This is a big legacy IT modernization challenge ahead of us. Not unlike the legacy IT modernization challenges that have plagued government forever, but we have to migrate to new cryptologic standards. We have to protect the data that we need to protect today. And the clock is ticking.</p>
<p><strong>Terry Gerton </strong>That conversation about harvest now decrypt later is a lot about cybersecurity. Let’s go back to sensing for a minute. You said that we’re closest there. Can you give us some examples of how sensing quantum is creating real mission value?</p>

<p><strong>Victor Foulk </strong>Absolutely. So if you think about the global contested environment from a defense and national security perspective, you don’t need thousands and thousands of qubits like you do with compute to do effective quantum sensing. Areas where this is proving incredible value today and has incredible promise is with alternate position navigation and timing. You think about being able to execute a global mission, whether that be national security or logistics. Being able to do that on the globe without GPS, it’s a pretty challenging proposition. And so we’ve been working for a very long time with alternate position navigation and timing technologies to be able to divorce ourselves from GPS, which can be jammed and be able to continue those mission critical missions with technology like this.</p>
<p><strong>Terry Gerton </strong>And so if you are an agency, CIO or CISO, and you’re trying to build your quantum migration strategy, where do you start and what are the practical steps that should be at the top of your priority list?</p>
<p><strong>Victor Foulk </strong>So I call this the rule of four and five. So the first thing that I’ll say is there’s four rules around discipline that need to be followed. The first rule of the first pillar of discipline, build a coalition across government, industry, and academia. Aside from the cyber mandates, there’s still time to get this right. And really nobody should be solving this as a one-off. Fund the three workstreams separately. If appropriate, sensing, computing, cryptography, whichever one’s applicable, name the leaders, build the strategy. Third, buy outcomes and not machines. Access to these capabilities, really an API call these days, there’s no reason for an agency to focus on owning hardware to find out if it applies to the mission. We learned this with AI and the same thing applies here. And the fourth pillar is plan for year eight and that’s the one everyone skips. The technology clock’s real, but acquisition, integration, accreditation, and sustainment are all real clocks that need to be managed. And then for CISOs and CIOs, I think the near-term steps are pretty actionable. Inventory the cryptography, because you can’t migrate what you can find. This is the asset management challenge that applies to vulnerability management, legacy IT modernization, and spades. Second, map your data lifetime and sort the data, knowing how long it has to say secret and its exposure. That, not mission criticality, or system criticality rather, is the migration priority order. The crown jewels in an air gap SCIF may actually be a lower priority than mission data that flows over contested wires. Then I’d say read the OMB memo, notice the verb. It says execution. Ask then who owns this in your agency because GAO looked at federal quantum threat mitigation. They found no single federal entity owns coordinating the strategy. If nobody owns it inside your organization either, that’s your first fix. Lastly, build crypto agility. We have a big lift ahead of us to modernize legacy IT systems to the modern cryptographic standards. The goal isn’t to modify and swap one algorithm for another, we’re going to have to swap again at some point in the future. We want to make sure the next transition is easy and not a decade long program. Bonus sixth, get the acquisition workforce ready. We learned this in spades with AI. The requirement being right matters more than the pathway being fast. And those are lessons learned from the AI evolution that we can apply to the quantum era.</p>
<p><strong>Terry Gerton </strong>All right, so I’m going to assume that every CISO and CTO is brilliant and has followed your advice, but they still have to compete for resources to execute that plan. How do they convince their non-IT leader, somebody like me who doesn’t know this from any other requirement that’s being brought to my desk, how do they make the case that this is urgent and needs to happen now?</p>
<p><strong>Victor Foulk </strong>Well, I go back to the, there’s a couple of things. There’s the executive orders, the mandates. Mandates always play. The risk of information, the original classification discussion that we had earlier in the discussion, I think is part of the sense of urgency. The third thing that I’d say is, don’t treat this as a one-off technology evolution. Legacy IT modernization is an ongoing reality across government. We still have agencies that are modernizing their data state to truly capitalize on artificial intelligence. Those legacy IT modernization programs are funded. They have a multi-year pathway. This is just a new set of technical requirements that can be built into existing IT modernization portfolios. And if you treat it as a holistic evolution, you may get some changes in your prioritization strategy in terms of which systems and which technologies you upgrade first. But overall, this just applies some new requirements and some new risks to apply to an existing legacy IT modernization portfolio.</p></blockquote>
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What to know about the $810 million in spending canceled by President Trump

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<h1>What to know about the $810 million in spending canceled by President Trump</h1>
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                Democrats are blaming Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought for the canceled funds, accusing him of violating the separation of powers and undermining Congressional authority.
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<p>Each year, Congress passes laws which allocate money to the federal government's various programs and agencies. Trump, for the second year in a row, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2026/09/president-trump-takes-historic-action-to-eliminate-wasteful-and-harmful-spending/" target="_blank"><u>is refusing to send some of that money to the places that Congress says it has to go</u></a>, setting off a fresh battle with lawmakers over who controls federal spending.</p> <p>Of the $810 million being withheld, $567 million comes from programs that "provided services to refugees, asylees, and other non-citizens," according to a memo from the White House.</p> <p>The move, called a pocket rescission, is illegal, <a href="https://www.gao.gov/blog/what-pocket-rescission-and-it-legal#:~:text=No.%20A%20pocket%20rescission%20is%20illegal" target="_blank"><u>according to the Government Accountability Office</u></a>, an independent, non-partisan watchdog agency charged with providing federal agencies fact-based information.</p> 
<p><a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C1-2-1/ALDE_00013356/" target="_blank"><u>Article 1 of the Constitution</u></a> gives Congress t<a href="https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Power-of-the-Purse/" target="_blank"><u>he power to levy taxes and decide how federal funds are spent</u></a> — known as power of the purse. If the president disagrees, he or she can send a request to Congress to cancel the fund, but that is supposed to happen with 45 days notice in order to let Congress agree or disagree.</p> <p>A pocket rescission happens when the president decides to cancel funds without ample time for Congress to weigh in or reallocate the money. With the end of the fiscal year less than a week away, the announcement means the funds will go unspent and Congress can't respond.</p> <p>"This is the most recent attempt by this Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to undermine Congress's Constitutional power of the purse," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations committee, wrote in a statement posted to X. "OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding."</p> <p>The canceled funds are fueling anger from Democrats who say OMB director Russell Vought is violating the separation of powers and undermining Congressional authority. </p> <p>"This is theft from the American people, plain and simple," wrote Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee on X. "Every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious, because Vought is saying their votes don't count."</p> 
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<p>"Donald Trump knows he can't get these cuts through Congress, so he is illegally making them through the back door," Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget committee, said in a statement. "Trump's actions are a blatant attack on Congress's constitutional power of the purse."</p> <p>The White House did not respond to a request for comment.</p> <p>The administration also says it withheld $15 million to a Justice Department team tasked with "preventing and resolving racial and ethnic tensions, incidents, and civil disorders, and in restoring racial stability and harmony," $70 million to "programs provide grants and fellowships to support institutions bringing foreign students and faculty to the United States to study or teach language," and tens of millions to various research and non-profit grant programs that target climate change or racial and gender minority work.</p> <p>A detailed accounting provided by the administration can be <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2026/09/president-trump-takes-historic-action-to-eliminate-wasteful-and-harmful-spending/" target="_blank"><u>found here</u></a>.</p>
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More than 3 million people affected by military data breach

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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A breach of the Defense Manpower Data Center’s information system exposed the personal information of more than 3 million people with ties to the U.S. military, a Pentagon official told Federal News Network on Monday.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A “small number of unauthorized users” had access to the data for nearly a year, from October 2025 to July 2026, the official added. A </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/1wmotdr/question_about_data_breach_letter/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">notice sent to one affected person</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> said a security vulnerability in a file-sharing system was discovered July 16 and was immediately patched.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The incident revealed the unencrypted names, contact information, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, military jobs and other records of nearly 2.8 million living individuals and 294,000 who are deceased, the official said. The type of data exposed varies by person.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“DMDC immediately initiated privacy and cybersecurity incident response actions in accordance with Office of Management and Budget at department guidelines and policies,” the notice says. “We are taking appropriate actions to assess and enhance the cybersecurity posture of the DMDC system.”</span></p>

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There’s no indication that anyone’s personal information has been misused, the Pentagon official said. IDX, a data breach and recovery services company, will provide 12 months of credit monitoring for those affected.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The official declined to answer several questions about the incident, including who accessed the data, whether those affected belong to a particular group, whether the breach was intentional or why personal information is stored on an unencrypted server.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">DMDC oversees identity verification for all DoD ID card holders. It maintains the records of more than 60 million troops and veterans, current and former civilian employees, contractors and military family members. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Federal News Network </span><a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2026/09/pentagon-finds-id-problems-affecting-215000-troops/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">recently reported</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the organization has worked all year to update the files of hundreds of thousands of troops that are missing the right documentation to hold a Common Access Card, which provides access to military installations and computer networks. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">A Pentagon official said Sept. 3 there’s no indication that foul play was involved or that the issue enabled a data breach.</span></p>
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Bryan Bedford

Runs FEMA and is the principal advisor to the President, the Homeland Security Council and the Secretary of Homeland Security on emergency management. Appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, from candidates with demonstrated emergency management ability and at least five years of executive leadership experience.

Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

Cameron Hamilton

Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, the institutional head of Federal Highway Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Department of Transportation Act (49 U.S.C. 104); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration

Sean McMaster

Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the institutional head of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 (113 Stat. 1748; 49 U.S.C. 113); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

Derek D. Barrs

Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, the institutional head of Federal Railroad Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Department of Transportation Act of 1966 (49 U.S.C. 103); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration

David Fink

Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, the institutional head of Federal Transit Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1968 (5 U.S.C. app.; 49 U.S.C. ch. 53); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration

Exercises the Secretary's authority under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, Poultry Products Inspection Act, Egg Products Inspection Act and Humane Slaughter Act, and directs the inspection workforce. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture and reporting through the Under Secretary for Food Safety.

Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service

Justin Ransom

Runs the Foreign Agricultural Service and, by statute, also oversees the General Sales Manager and the Agricultural Attache Service, making the Administrator USDA's senior official on agricultural trade. The post is filled by the Secretary of Agriculture and is not Senate-confirmed.

Administrator of the Foreign Agricultural Service

Daniel Whitley

Administrator of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, the institutional head of Great Lakes Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. Appointed by the President under Saint Lawrence Seaway Act of May 13, 1954 (33 U.S.C. 981-990); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation

J. M. (Mike) McCoshen

Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, the institutional head of Health Resources and Services Administration. Appointed under Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 201 et seq.); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration

Thomas J. Engels

Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the institutional head of National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (Public Law 85-568); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Jared Isaacman

Awards and administers the office's grants and judges whether states comply with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act's core protections. The Administrator is appointed by the President from among people with experience in juvenile justice programs.

Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Eileen M. Garry

Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the institutional head of Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Norman Y. Mineta Research and Special Programs Improvement Act of 2004 (49 U.S.C. 108); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration

Paul J. Roberti

Directs the federal crop insurance program and also serves as Manager of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture; no Senate confirmation required.

Administrator of the Risk Management Agency

Patricia Swanson

Directs the agency's rural business loan, loan guarantee and grant programs under the Under Secretary for Rural Development. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture; no Senate confirmation required.

Administrator of the Rural Business-Cooperative Service

J.R. Claeys

Directs the agency's rural housing and community facilities loan, guarantee and grant programs under the Under Secretary for Rural Development. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture; no Senate confirmation required.

Administrator of the Rural Housing Service

George Kelly

Directs the agency's electric, telecommunications and water and waste lending programs. Appointed by the President; no Senate confirmation required.

Administrator of the Rural Utilities Service

Karl Elmshaeuser

Administrator of the Small Business Administration, the institutional head of Small Business Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Small Business Act of 1953 (15 U.S.C. 631 et seq.); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Small Business Administration

Kelly Loeffler

Runs the power marketing administration: negotiates its wholesale sales contracts, sets rates that repay the federal investment in the dams, and directs generation scheduling with the Corps. Appointed by the Secretary of Energy.

Administrator of the Southeastern Power Administration

Virgil G. Hobbs III

Runs the power marketing administration: negotiates its wholesale contracts, sets rates that repay the federal investment in the dams, and oversees its transmission system. Appointed by the Secretary of Energy.

Administrator of the Southwestern Power Administration

Mike Wech

Directs federal security screening at airports and security regulation across all transportation modes, and receives and distributes transportation security intelligence. Appointed by the President with Senate confirmation for a five-year term; the statute requires experience in transportation or security.

Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration

David P. Cummins

Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, the institutional head of Wage and Hour Division. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 204); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division

Andrew Rogers

Runs WAPA's power marketing, rate setting and transmission operations, exercising on the Secretary's behalf the power marketing functions transferred from the Bureau of Reclamation. Appointed by the Secretary of Energy.

Administrator of the Western Area Power Administration

Tracey A. LeBeau

Funds high-risk energy research that industry will not finance on its own, awarding cost-shared projects to companies, universities and national laboratories and cutting them off when technical milestones are missed. Its targets are set by statute: energy imports, emissions, efficiency, nuclear waste, and the resilience of energy infrastructure.

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy

Conner Prochaska

Runs the Section 106 process, under which a federal agency must consider how a project it funds, permits or carries out would affect historic properties and consult states and tribes before proceeding. It writes the regulations for that review, joins the hardest cases itself, and advises the President and Congress.

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

Chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is an operating division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services within the Public Health Service. It produces evidence and funds research to make health care safer, higher in quality, more accessible, and more affordable, and works to ensure that the evidence is understood and used. It was established in 1999 under the Healthcare Research and Quality Act, succeeding the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, and is codified at 42 U.S.C. 299.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Roger D. Klein

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is a public health agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, administered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It evaluates and works to reduce human exposure to hazardous substances from waste sites, spills, and other releases, conducts public health assessments, and studies the health effects of toxic exposures. It was authorized by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980.

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

Aaron Bernstein

Runs the Department of Agriculture's own laboratories: its scientists work on crop and livestock production, plant and animal disease, food safety, human nutrition and natural resource management. Results are published for public use rather than sold, and much of the work is done with land-grant universities.

Agricultural Research Service

Flies the aircraft and crews the vessels that Customs and Border Protection uses to detect, track and interdict smuggling and other unlawful cross-border activity. It is CBP's air and sea arm: the Border Patrol covers the land between ports of entry and the Office of Field Operations staffs the ports.

Air and Marine Operations

Jonathan P. Miller

Reviews court-martial convictions from the Air Force and Space Force, sitting in panels of at least three appellate military judges. It can affirm, modify or set aside findings and sentences, may hold a sentence inappropriately severe, and its decisions can be taken on to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals

Provides graduate and professional education to Air Force and Space Force members and Department of the Air Force civilians: its graduate school awards master's and doctoral degrees in engineering, science and management, and its continuing-education schools train civil engineers, logisticians and strategic-force specialists.

Air Force Institute of Technology

James C. Bowers

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury. It collects federal excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and ammunition and regulates the production, labeling, advertising, and importation of alcohol and tobacco products. It was established on January 24, 2003, under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which split the former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and retained the tax and trade functions in the Treasury.

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau

Serves as the principal cyberspace policy official within State Department senior management and as the Secretary's adviser on cyber and digital issues, leading the Department's cyber diplomacy. Appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, with the rank and status of ambassador.

Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy

Adam Cassady

Designs, builds and maintains the permanent American military cemeteries and memorials outside the United States - the graves, chapels, monuments and grounds where American war dead are buried or commemorated. It also controls the erection of other United States war memorials and monuments on foreign soil.

American Battle Monuments Commission

Chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission

The American Printing House for the Blind is a private nonprofit corporation that holds a federal charter and serves as the official national source of educational materials for students who are legally blind and enrolled in programs below the college level. It produces and distributes braille and large-print textbooks, educational aids, and assistive technology, funded through an annual federal appropriation administered by the Department of Education. It was chartered by Congress in 1879.

American Printing House for the Blind

Craig Meador

The President of the American Printing House for the Blind leads the Louisville nonprofit that manufactures and furnishes braille, large-print and tactile materials for the instruction of blind students, distributed to schools each year under a federal per-pupil quota (20 U.S.C. 101, 102). Its Board of Trustees selects the president.

President

Funds economic development in the Appalachian counties of thirteen states, approving grants for broadband and water infrastructure, workforce training and business development, mostly delivered through local development districts. It is run jointly by the governors of the member states and a federal co-chair.

Appalachian Regional Commission

Gayle Conelly Manchin

The Architect of the Capitol is a legislative branch agency responsible for the maintenance, operation, development, and preservation of the United States Capitol, the congressional office buildings, the Library of Congress buildings, the Supreme Court building, the United States Botanic Garden, and the grounds of the Capitol campus. The title refers to both the agency and the official who heads it. Permanent statutory authority for the office dates to the Act of August 15, 1876.

Architect of the Capitol

Thomas E. Austin

The Architect of the Capitol has the care and superintendence of the Capitol and maintains the buildings and grounds of the Capitol campus (2 U.S.C. 1812). A commission of congressional leaders and appropriations and administration committee members appoints the Architect to a renewable 10-year term and can remove the holder at any time (2 U.S.C. 1801a).

Archivist of the United States, the institutional head of National Archives and Records Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under National Archives and Records Administration Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-497); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Archivist of the United States

Bradford Pentony Wilson

Arctic Research Commission

Chairman of the Arctic Research Commission

Operates the two homes for retired and former enlisted members of the armed forces, Armed Forces Retirement Home-Washington and Armed Forces Retirement Home-Gulfport, providing residences, meals and graduated levels of health and long-term care. Eligibility is statutory, turning on length of service or wartime service.

Armed Forces Retirement Home

Stephen T. Rippe

Hears and decides contractors' appeals from the final decisions of Department of Defense and NASA contracting officers - disputes over payment, delay, termination and contract interpretation. Its full-time judges must have at least five years of experience in public contract law and are selected the way administrative law judges are.

Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals

Reviews court-martial convictions from the Army, sitting in panels of at least three appellate military judges. It can affirm, modify or set aside findings and sentences, may hold a sentence inappropriately severe, and its decisions can be taken on to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Army Court of Criminal Appeals

Heads the National Security Division and is the Justice Department's primary liaison to the Director of National Intelligence. One of the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorneys General, designated for the role by the President (28 U.S.C. 507A).

Assistant Attorney General for National Security

John A. Eisenberg

Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, the institutional head of Office of Justice Programs. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Justice Assistance Act of 1984; directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.