Oversight on CrossGov.com

Pentagon Inspector General Declines Bipartisan Senate Request to Investigate Starlink and Starshield Disruptions in Ukraine

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Defense Department’s inspector general has turned down a request from nine senators, four Republicans and five Democrats, to investigate this month’s disruptions to Starlink and Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. In a reply dated October 27, the watchdog said the questions were better answered by the department itself, and pointed the senators to the Air Force. A spokeswoman for the office said it could reconsider if new information comes to light.

FBI Arrests a CIA Contractor With Top Secret Clearance on Charges of Leaking Classified Reports to a Journalist

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The FBI arrested a CIA contractor on October 23, 2026, on a charge that he passed classified national defense information to a journalist he was dating. The Justice Department named him as Ian A. Brinksman, 42, of Washington, DC, and charged him by criminal complaint with unlawfully transmitting national defense information, an Espionage Act offense.

The case started inside the agency. CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the FBI made the arrest “following a referral from the Agency.” The FBI’s Chicago Field Office led the investigation, with help from the Washington Field Office. Brinksman held a Top Secret clearance with access to sensitive compartmented information. He had worked since 2020 for a government agency in the Eastern District of Virginia and, from 2022, as a systems integration developer for a contractor to that agency.

FinCEN Finds $270 Million in Suspicious Activity Tied to Federal Student Aid Fraud

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said on October 19, 2026, that it had found about $270 million in suspicious financial activity that may be tied to fraud against federal student aid programs. It has passed the findings to federal investigators.

The number comes from banks. In July FinCEN asked financial institutions to watch for student aid fraud and report it. Since then they’ve filed nearly 100 suspicious activity reports. FinCEN’s review of those reports turned up more than 20,000 potentially suspicious transactions going back to February 2026. Treasury’s release says the reports don’t give a complete picture of the activity, and the referrals are leads for investigators, not charges.

GAO Finds HUD Cut 29 Percent of Its Workforce and Ended 21 Percent of Its Contracts, Then Did Not Answer the Auditors

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

GAO found that the Department of Housing and Urban Development cut its workforce by about 29 percent between December 2024 and December 2025, from about 8,800 employees to about 6,300. The report, GAO-26-108442, was released on October 14, 2026.

HUD also ended 144 of its 675 active contracts in 2025, about 21 percent, worth $367 million. And through most of the audit, the department didn’t answer GAO’s questions. GAO says HUD did not respond to most of its requests for information and didn’t provide documents to back up the initiatives it had announced in public. GAO had to rebuild the picture from federal personnel, contract and grant databases, and from interviews with 20 organizations that deal with HUD.

GSA and SBA Audit 689 Suspended 8a Contractors Whose Federal Contracts Carry a $5.5 Billion Ceiling

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The General Services Administration and the Small Business Administration are auditing the federal contracts of 689 firms suspended from the SBA’s 8(a) program, contracts with a combined ceiling of $5.5 billion. GSA announced the review on October 21, 2026.

The 8(a) Business Development Program lets small businesses owned by people the SBA counts as socially and economically disadvantaged compete for set-aside and sole-source federal work. To stay in, a firm has to meet tests on personal net worth, adjusted gross income, total assets, character and its potential for success. The SBA says its own assessment found hundreds of participants that hadn’t shown they met those tests and kept getting contracts and procurement priority anyway. GSA will go through those contracts one by one and send suspected fraud to its inspector general and the Justice Department.

Twenty One States Sue Treasury Over a Rule Exempting Nearly All Companies From Ownership Reporting

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Twenty-one state attorneys general sued Treasury on October 27 over a FinCEN rule that exempts every US company from the Corporate Transparency Act’s ownership reporting. The case, Oregon v. Bessent, was filed in federal court in Eugene, Oregon. It asks the court to throw out the rule and to stop FinCEN from deleting the ownership data it has already collected, a purge the complaint says is set for on or about February 10, 2027.

White House Press Corps Has No Legal Claim to the Brady Briefing Room as Trump Weighs a Move

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

President Trump said on October 25, 2026, that he is thinking about moving the White House press corps to a different location. No statute gives reporters a place in the West Wing, and the courts have so far treated most of the building’s working rooms as the president’s to control. If he decides to move them, the decision is his.

The statement came in two Truth Social posts. On October 24 he denied a New York Times report from October 20 that he had discussed turning the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room back into the indoor swimming pool it covers, while saying he may move the press to a “less obnoxious location.” A day later he said he was thinking about moving the press and putting them somewhere else. He named no destination and no date. Communications director Steven Cheung had said earlier that all options remained on the table.

US Government News Digest for October 26 2026

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Eight days before the midterms, Washington spent Monday arguing about who gets the last word. The Justice Department is in federal court in Alaska and California trying to shape how ballots are handled and results certified. A judge in Manhattan told the same department it had no right to fire a career prosecutor the way it did. Two senators say the administration is sitting on a surveillance court ruling the law says it should have published six weeks ago.

Congress Needs a Verifiable Account of What the Iran Strikes Achieved

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A military campaign can produce extensive destruction without producing a settled answer about what an adversary can still do. That distinction matters whenever an administration asks Congress and the public to accept a declaration of success. Targets struck, facilities damaged, weapons remaining and production capacity restored are different measurements. Treating them as interchangeable makes oversight weaker precisely when the consequences are greatest.

Government Shutdowns Turn Aviation Workers Into Washington's Financial Shock Absorbers

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Washington has developed a peculiar approach to essential public services: declare the work too important to stop, then interrupt the pay of the people doing it. In aviation, that contradiction reaches well beyond federal offices. It follows passengers through security checkpoints, into departure lounges and onto aircraft waiting for clearance. A government shutdown may begin as a dispute over appropriations, but its consequences travel.

TPS Terminations Put Immigration Decision Making and Public Notice Under Scrutiny

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An immigration decision is not fully administered when an official signs it. People must be able to understand when it takes effect, employers must know what documentation remains valid, and agencies must explain how litigation changes implementation. Temporary Protected Status brings these obligations into unusually sharp focus because permission to remain and work can depend on a country designation, a government notice and the timing of a court decision.

GAO Sets AI and Fiscal Oversight Priorities Through 2032 With No Confirmed Comptroller General and a House Bill Cutting Its Budget 25%

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Government Accountability Office released its strategic plan for 2027 to 2032 last week, setting out how Congress’s main watchdog means to spend the next six years. It puts artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and the federal fiscal outlook near the top. It was signed by an acting head, at an agency the House wants to cut by a quarter.

GAO writes a new plan every few years. It’s the document that tells committees what kind of work to expect and tells GAO’s own staff where hiring and training will go. This one comes at an awkward moment for the agency.

Pentagon Acts as Investor and Bulk Buyer With 25,000 APKWS Kits a Year and Supplier Stakes, but Congress Holds the Money

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Pentagon signed a framework with BAE Systems on October 19 for up to 25,000 APKWS guidance kits a year for up to seven years, but Congress still has to approve and fund it. The same week, the department’s technology chief talked up loans and equity stakes in suppliers. The Pentagon wants to be a long-term customer and a shareholder at once. Both roles run through Capitol Hill.

The APKWS kit turns an unguided 2.75-inch rocket into a laser-guided one. All four services use it, and it has become a cheap way to shoot down drones. BAE builds the kits in Hudson, New Hampshire, and Austin, Texas, and delivered its 100,000th in February. The framework also sets out a path to 35,000 kits a year if allies place orders through Foreign Military Sales.

The Iran War Cost Dispute Is Becoming a Test of Congressional Oversight

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The fight over the cost of the Iran war has reached a basic question of government accountability: should Americans be allowed to see the financial damage from a military campaign they are paying for? Five Democratic senators have written to CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper demanding public disclosure of estimated damage to American military bases and facilities. Their intervention follows a classified briefing in which Cooper supplied damage estimates to lawmakers. The information exists, in other words. The dispute is over why the public cannot see an unclassified accounting of it.

ICE Arrests of Children Have Doubled, With 8,592 Arrested This Term, as Detainees Hunger Strike at Georgia's Largest Detention Center