Report: White House lacks plan for dealing with Trump’s conflicts of interest

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• No plan of action has been developed for President Donald Trump and other White House officials’ potential conflicts of interest. A new report from Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ranking Member Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) says the Treasury Department was charged with confronting them, but the department hasn’t developed any policies or procedures for responding to conflicts. Treasury also said it’s up to the White House to develop those procedures. (Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee)

• Military criminal investigators are taking another look at the case of a Navy shipyard that wasted millions of dollars by building an unauthorized police force. The case, which was first publicly reported in August by Federal News Radio, is once again under active investigation. It involves the illegal or improper acquisition of millions of dollars in vehicles, firearms and other police and military gear by what was supposed to be an unarmed internal security force at the Norfolk Yard. NCIS first investigated the case in 2014, but closed it without arrests after federal prosecutors declined to pursue criminal indictments. (Federal News Radio)

• There could be a new data post in the Department of Navy. It’s exploring the need for chief data officer to help with using and sorting vast amounts of data. The Navy collects more data in a day than all of the information in the Library of Congress. Though the service has been considering the plan for a CDO since January, no actions have been taken. (Federal News Radio)

• Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) would like to raise the amount paid out by the service-disabled veterans’ life insurance program. He introduced legislation to raise the cap on payouts from $10,000 to $95,000. Pearce’s bill would also will create a process for adjusting the cap based on inflation each year. (Rep. Steve Pearce)

• Agencies are working on the stage to of a recent Homeland Security Department cyber directive. A majority of all agencies met the initial 30-day deadline to identify what products from Kaspersky Lab they have on their networks. But less than half of all agencies said they actually have Kaspersky products on their systems. DHS required agencies in September to remove all Kaspersky products from their IT systems in 90 days. Agencies now move into stage two where they are developing a plan for how they will remove these software titles. Those strategies are due to DHS by mid-November. (Federal News Radio)

• The alleged hack of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s phone prompted one senator to call for the Homeland Security Department  and the National Security Agency to take action. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote to NSA head Adm. Mike Rogers and acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke encouraging them to collaborate on an effort to secure personal devices and email accounts of senior government officials. He said the program should include a cybersecurity check-up to make sure devices and accounts are properly secured. (Sen. Ron Wyden)

• The White House is looking for a database service provider. An RFQ from the Executive Office of the President asks for information about online database services to provide the office with news, public records and legal information. The request calls for a user-friendly filing system to be updated at minimum on a daily basis. (FedBizOpps)

• A request from the General Services Administration is asking for help supporting technology initiatives at four Centers of Excellence. GSA wants technologists to advise on projects to develop identity and access management services to integrate with agency systems and platforms, create a portfolio of cloud services and implementing flexible delivery solutions, consolidating customer contact centers and improving customer service, and improving data sharing for better decision making and transparency. Responses for the RFI are due in by Nov. 1. (FedBizOpps)

• An agreement is reached between the Internal Revenue Service and hundreds of conservative, tea party groups. The agency will issue an apology and also make a  very substantial payout to the groups involved in the class action lawsuit. This stems from the 2013 scandal in which it was show the IRS was unfairly targeting the groups when applying for tax-exempt status. (Federal News Radio)

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