No prosecutions related to Denver VA hospital cost overruns

• There will be no prosecutions of Veterans Affairs Department executives for cost overruns at a Denver VA hospital. The Justice Department told lawmakers there was not enough evidence to prosecute them. They wanted a perjury investigation of two VA executives in charge of construction management, for failing to mention the Denver project’s money troubles in their testimony to Congress. (Associated Press)

• The Office of Special Counsel said the White House social media director violated the Hatch Act. OSC issued a warning to Dan Scavino for a tweet calling on voters to vote against Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) in the primary election. OSC said if Scavino engages in any more prohibited policy activity, it will consider further action. His tweet showed Scavino’s picture in the Oval Office next to a presidential flag. Both Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) had asked OSC to investigate. (Federal News Radio)

• Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wants President Trump to rescind a recent policy from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. The opinion said executive branch agencies should only respond to inquiries from congressional committee chairman. Grassley blasted the decision, calling it unconstitutional, unethical and “nonsense.” Some Cabinet secretaries said they’ll respond to congressional inquiries, regardless of the sender. (Federal News Radio)

• A deputy director for the U.S. Agency for International Development has pleaded guilty to having a role in a contract steering scheme. According to the Justice Department, BethAnne Moskov secretly gave materials from a consultancy contract to a friend hoping to be chosen for the job. Her co-conspirator was selected and was awarded over $20,000 for the project. (Department of Justice)

• The Veterans Affairs Department is making progress in improving its payment time to student veterans through the G.I. bill, but lawmakers still aren’t satisfied. It takes about 21 days for student veterans to get a claim processed without any hitches. Part of the problem is antiquated IT systems in the VA. (Federal News Radio)

• The Defense Department is several years into the process of bringing home and fixing military equipment that was used in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Government Accountability Office says DoD still hasn’t come up with a coherent strategy for “retrograde” and “reset.” GAO said a strategic policy is tied to future readiness, since it informs the decisions the military services make about what equipment they want to prepare for future wars. The office said the lack of a policy comes down to finger pointing — officials within the offices of the undersecretaries for policy, personnel and readiness, and acquisition each believe it’s the other office’s job to prepare one. Within the military services, only the Marine Corps has come up with its own implementation plan for retrograde and reset. (Government Accountability Office)

• The Department of Health and Human Services is out hundreds of millions in dollars for sub-par electronic health records. The HHS inspector general estimates Medicare, under the 2009 stimulus bill, sent more than $700 million in reimbursements to doctors and hospitals whose EHRs failed to meet federal requirements. The incentive payments are meant for practices that buy the systems for what the law calls meaningful use. The IG recommends a list of changes to improve program integrity. (Federal News Radio)

• A new cyber center for the Health and Human Services Department is hitting the ground running after last month’s WannaCry ransomware attack. HHS officials told lawmakers the center was able to provide real-time information to government and industry during the attack, which crippled IT networks at hospitals around the world. Leo Scanlon, deputy CISO at HHS, said at one point the center helped support a two-hour conference call with more than 3,000 stakeholders. (Federal News Radio)

• A second major change is coming to the federal CIO ranks. Mark Schwartz, the groundbreaking chief information officer at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in the Homeland Security Department, is leaving government. USCIS confirmed Schwartz resigned. His last day in the office is still under negotiation, as well as who will be named acting CIO until a permanent replacement is named. During his seven-year tenure at USCIS, Schwartz became a driving force behind the government’s move to agile or the dev/ops methodology for software and systems development. (Federal News Radio)

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