Quick Hits

*** The exodus of high-level defense officials continues. Mike Griffin, the undersecretary of research and engineering, and Lisa Porter, his deputy, have submitted their resignations. Griffin was the first person to hold his position, created under the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, which split the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics portfolio into two positions.

The two join Elaine McCusker, the acting DOD comptroller and Kathryn Wheelbarger, acting assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, in heading for the exits. McCusker had been nominated to serve as comptroller and the number three official at DOD on a permanent basis, but her nomination was pulled after it was revealed that she had pushed back on the withholding of defense assistance funds to Ukraine – a move that formed part of the basis for the impeachment case against President Donald Trump.

*** The managers of the .gov domain at the General Services Administration announced a new security measure on June 21 – plans to preload the .gov top level domain for federal websites to that users are automatically taken to secure websites by default. HSTS preloading ensures that users who click on links to government sites, find links in search engines or type in the names of government agencies in browser windows will be taken directly to a secure HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) website. The change won't be instantaneous and won't cover every .gov website, but beginning Sept. 1 of this year all new .gov domains will be preloaded, and GSA is working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to prep domain owners for preloading in the future.