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Today on the Daily Scoop podcast from the Scoop News Group, GSA's central role in the Trump administration. Fed Scoop reporter Miranda Nazaro, who reports on the GSA, takes you inside. It's Tuesday, January 27, 2026. Welcome to the Daily Scoop podcast where you'll hear the latest news and trends facing government leaders. I'm the host of the Daily Scoop Podcast, Billy Mitchell. Thanks so much for joining me. Now let's dive into the day's top headlines. The Treasury Department said Monday that it would cancel all of its contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, linking the decision to a former employee now serving prison time for leaking tax returns. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said in a three paragraph press release that the agency's 31 contracts with Booz Allen, worth $21 million in total obligations and $4.8 million in annual spending, would be scrapped as part of President Donald Trump's push to root out waste, fraud and abuse. Besant said canceling these contracts is an essential step to increasing Americans trust in government. Booz Allen failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service. A Booze spokesperson said in an email to FedScoop that the firm was surprised by this announcement and especially given Treasury's reasoning regarding Charles Edward LittleJohn, who between 2018 and 2020 leaked the confidential tax returns and information of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers. That spokesperson went on to say that, quote, booz Allen fully supported the US Government in its investigation and the government expressed gratitude for our assistance which led to Little John's prosecution. We were surprised by this announcement and look forward to discussing this matter with treasury, unquote. Per the treasury release, the IRS determined that the data breach affected roughly 406,000 taxpayers. Little John, who was sentenced to five years in prison last January after pleading guilty to one count of disclosing tax return information without authorization, leaked the returns of Trump, Elon Musk and other wealthy individuals to a pair of news organizations. Now moving on to other news. Now NASA has a new top official for artificial intelligence and data. Kevin Murphy began serving in an acting capacity in both roles November 30, 2025. NASA spokesperson Jennifer Duran confirmed a Fed scoop in an email. He replaces David Salvagnini, who was the agency's CDO for roughly two and a half years, and CAIO for just over a year and a half. Salvagnini was the agency's first ever CAIO, according to Murphy's LinkedIn. He has been at NASA for over 17 years. He first served as a system architect at NASA's Goddard Space Flight center and has held a series of data related roles, including Chief Science Data Officer. As the agency's lead for data science, Murphy has already worked to advance technology such as cloud computing, machine learning and data platforms for use with NASA's scientific data per agency bio. He also oversees the agency's High End Computing Capability, or HECC portfolio, which is which deploys computing technologies to support large scale modeling, simulation and analysis at the agency. Murphy's designation as acting CAIO and CDO come after Salvagnini announced his plans to leave the agency in a LinkedIn post roughly two months ago. In that post, Salvagnini said he opted into the Trump administration's deferred resignation program and said he began his transition Oct. 31 and would retire from federal service in the spring of 2026. For more news at the intersection of the federal government and technology, make sure to visit fedscoop.com the General Services Administration has leaned into its role as a central shared services provider for the rest of the federal government during the second Trump administration. In particular, it has taken a leadership position, centralizing most federal procurement under one roof and serving as a sort of clearinghouse for federal AI efforts, among others. With so much transformation underway, the GSA during Trump 2.0 has taken on an even brighter spotlight, fueling federal operations. Miranda Nazaro is the Fed Scoop reporter covering GSA during this pivotal time, and she's joining me now to discuss some of the agency's top priorities, from one Gov and the TMF to eliminating woke AI. Let's now go to that conversation with Fed Scoop reporter Miranda Nazaro. Miranda, good to see you. Welcome to the podcast. It's your first time, I believe. I don't think we've done this before.
