Another Navy commander sentenced in ‘Fat Leonard’ case

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• Another former Navy commander was sentenced for bribery in the so-called “Fat Leonard” case. After pleading guilty, Troy Amundson received more than two years in prison and a $10,000 fine for accepting dinners, drinks and prostitutes from then-Malaysian defense contractor Leonard Francis. Amundson is the 21st person to plead guilty in the case. (Department of Justice)
• In a legal setback to the Trump administration’s attempt to salvage its federal personnel plan, a federal court rejected a White House bid to expedite its appeal. The administration wants to overturn a lower court ruling which tossed out much of President Donald Trump’s May executive orders on dismissals and collective bargaining. (National Treasury Employees Union)
• Agencies are at vastly different stages in implementing learning or evidence-based policy agendas. The Office of Management and Budget asked agencies to begin implementing learning agendas in its June reorganization proposal. OMB said some agencies like the Health and Human Services Department are emerging as leaders in this space, while others such as the Health and Human Services Department or the U.S. Agency for International Development are just getting started. (Federal News Network)
• The Defense Department is continuing its work to bridge the gap between the public and the military. The newest effort is the Their Tomorrow campaign, which will run on television and radio in hopes of addressing common misconceptions about the military. The Their Tomorrow campaign focuses on parents and youth and how to broach conversations about joining the military. The effort will serve as a recruiting tool for the military to sustain its all-volunteer force. Recently, the Army missed its 2018 recruiting goal by 6,500 soldiers.
• The Defense Department makes the Career Intermission Program an official and permanent authority, said Pentagon spokeswoman Air Force Maj. Carla Gleason. The program has been in pilot status for about 10 years and allows service members to take time off from the military to care for a loved one or attend school. (Department of Defense)
• The Census Bureau plans on using a “fundamentally different approach” to prevent the improper disclosure of personal information in the 2020 population count. Simson Garfinkle, a senior computer scientist at Census, said advances in computers since 2010 have made it easier to unscramble public-facing data sets back into raw personal data. The agency plans on using “noise injection” to make it harder for prying eyes to reverse-engineer published Census data. (Federal News Network)

• The second-ranking political appointee at Housing and Urban Development has departed under odd circumstances. Suzanne Israel Tufts, the assistant secretary for administration, resigned Friday. The Hill reports, a week earlier Secretary Ben Carson told staff that Tufts was leaving to become inspector general at the Interior Department. But an Interior spokeswoman said Tufts was never slated to move there, and that HUD put out false information. Interior has lacked a permanent IG for a decade. (The Hill)

• In another big win to help end contract proliferation, the FBI joins other agencies in deciding not to recompete a major multiple award contract on its own and move to an existing governmentwide vehicle. The bureau announces it will create a blanket purchase agreement on top of GSA’s IT schedule instead of recompeting its $5 billion IT support services contract. The FBI said its new contract will address six functional areas, including End User, Business Application, platform and infrastructure services. The FBI plans to make 15 to 22 awards per track with 10 to 12 going to large businesses and 5 to 7 going to small firms. (FedBizOpps)

• EPA union employees elect new leadership. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 choose Gary Morton as their president. The union represents over 9,000 agency employees across the country. Morton previously served as president of a local chapter of EPA employees in Philadelphia. (American Federation of Government Employees)

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