Senate confirms GSA leader, top tech official, raft of DoD nominees
The Senate approved 97 Trump administration appointees before leaving town for the holidays on Thursday, with the confirmed list including top officials at the Defense Department, the General Services Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The vote on Thursday leaves just 15 nominations awaiting confirmation in the Senate heading into 2026. It also brings the total number of confirmed presidential appointees to 417 so far in Trump’s second term.
Tech officials confirmed
Ethan Klein was confirmed to serve as the fifth U.S. chief technology officer and as associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Klein’s confirmation comes as the Trump administration has embraced artificial intelligence and related technologies. The White House CTO position has been vacant since 2021, as the Biden administration never named an official to the post.
OSTP said Klein will “lead and coordinate national policy efforts to advance American leadership across critical and emerging technologies, including AI, quantum, nuclear energy, and biotechnology.” Klein is a nuclear engineer who served at OSTP during the first Trump administration.
“I’ve worked with Dr. Ethan Klein for nearly a decade and seen firsthand his expertise as a policymaker and technologist. He brings unparalleled experience, thoughtful leadership, and results-driven energy to the role of U.S. CTO,” OSTP Director Michael Kratsios said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to once again be working together to fulfill the president’s agenda and ensure global American leadership in science and technology,”
The Senate also confirmed Kirsten Davies to serve as the DoD chief information officer. As CIO, Davies will nominally serve as the top advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on IT and cybersecurity. Her confirmations comes as Hegseth has pushed DoD to adopt AI technologies rapidly.
Davies has extensive private sector executive experience, most recently as chief information security officer at British multinational company Unilever.
During her September confirmation hearing, Davies said “great change” is needed within the defense IT enterprise.
“There are great people, but at today’s speed of change, skills must be constantly refreshed and future fit. New entrants with innovative tech solutions struggle with red tape and lack of access. Cyberattacks are pervasive,” Davies said. “America’s adversaries are motivated and capable to inflict massive impact, and there is little deterrence. Great change is needed in this time and in this hour.”
DoD CFO, R&E chief confirmed
In addition to Davies, the Senate confirmed a raft of other DoD officials yesterday. They include Michael Powers to be DoD comptroller and chief financial officer; Amy Henninger to serve as director of operational test and evaluation; and James Mazol as deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) applauded Mazol’s confirmation in a Dec. 19 statement.
“James has a sharp understanding of the threat environment the United States faces, particularly as it pertains to China’s advancements in critical technology areas,” Wicker said. “I look forward to partnering with him and his office to meet America’s defense needs.”
GSA gets first permanent chief under Trump administration
The Senate confirmed Edward Forst, a real estate and financial services executive, to serve as the Trump administration’s first permanent head of the General Services Administration.
Forst told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in October that GSA “stands at the tip of the spear” of the Trump administration’s government efficiency agenda.
A major part of that efficiency agenda, Forst said, is the need to “right-size” its real estate portfolio, and address a growing maintenance backlog for the properties it owns.
Forst said offloading these underutilized and deteriorating properties will “ensure taxpayers no longer pay for underutilized space and properties that may never fully be repaired,” and ensure federal employees have better office space.
Federal real estate is on the Government Accountability Office’s list of high-risk federal programs, because of the ballooning backlog of maintenance and repair needs. According to GAO, the backlog more than doubled between fiscal 2017 and 2024, from $ 170 billion to $ 340 billion.
“Deferred maintenance is a very gentle term for, I’ll say, delinquent maintenance,” Forst said.
GSA is supporting the Trump administration’s return-to-office mandate for federal employees by moving agencies out of underutilized office space that falls short of a 60% average utilization goal
Forst said GSA is falling short of its own return-to-office goals, because 25% of its headquarters building is falling behind on its own deferred maintenance projects and has been deemed “uninhabitable.”
VA’s top health care official to oversee reorganization
The Senate also confirmed a new permanent leader of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ health care operations, ahead of its biggest reorganization in decades.
John Bartrum, a former senior advisor to VA Secretary Doug Collins, will serve as VA’s under secretary for health. Bartrum, a combat veteran with more than 40 years of active-duty and reserve military service, previously oversaw policy and funding at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The VA earlier this week announced its intent to reorganize the Veterans Health Administration.
Collins said in a statement that VHA’s current leadership structure “is riddled with redundancies that slow decision making, sow confusion and create competing priorities”
“When everyone’s in charge of everything, no one’s in charge of anything,” Collins said.
VA says the changes aren’t expected to result in a significant change in overall staffing levels. But the Washington Post first reported that the VA no longer plans to fill tens of thousands of vacant health care positions.
The VA says it’s briefed lawmakers on the reorganization, and that implementation will take place over the next 18-24 months.
Rather than pursue a reduction in force of more than 80,000 employees, as it considered earlier this year, the VA shed more than 30,000 positions through attrition in fiscal 2025.
“The department’s history shows that adding more employees to the system doesn’t automatically equal better results,” Collins told lawmakers in May.
Senate VA Committee Chairman Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said a statement that he applauded Bartrum for his commitment to allow more veterans to seek health care outside the VA system.
“I look forward to working closely with him and Secretary Collins to improve the health of veterans in Kansas and across the country,” Moran said.
The top Democrat on the Senate VA Committee, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), said in a statement Friday that Bartrum “played a key role in stonewalling and slow walking Congress and veterans” on requests for information about VA’s budget, community care wait times, contract cancellations and staffing plans.
Trump IG picks get through
The Senate also confirmed five agency inspector generals on Thursday. Trump has controversially fired many agency inspector generals during his second term in office, including 17 IG’s within his first few days in office.
The Senate confirmed William Kirk to be inspector general of the Small Business Administration, Anthony D’Esposito to serve as IG at the Labor Department and Platte Moring to serve as IG at DoD.
Lawmakers also confirmed Thomas Bell to be inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services and John Walk to be inspector general at the Agriculture Department.
The nominations of Bell, D’Esposito and Walk, respectively, drew some concern from Democrats about their political backgrounds. In his written testimony prepared for an October confirmation hearing, Bell pledged to “examine, evaluate, audit, and investigate to support the initiatives of President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Robert] Kennedy.”
DHS nominees approved, but CISA still waits
Several Department of Homeland Security officials have also gotten through the confirmation process this week. Most notably, the Senate approved Adm. Kevin Lunday’s nomination to be commandant of the Coast Guard.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) had placed a hold on Lunday’s nomination after the Coast Guard called some hate symbols “potentially divisive” in a new policy, setting off a firestorm of criticism. The Coast Guard removed those references in the policy Thursday, clearing the way for Rosen to remove her hold on Lunday’s nomination.
However, Rosen is reportedly still holding the nomination of Sean Plankey to serve as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency over concerns about the Coast Guard implementing the change. Plankey is currently serving as a senior advisor in the Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, the Senate on Thursday also confirmed James Percival to serve as general counsel at DHS and Pedro Allende to serve as under secretary for science and technology at the department.
The post Senate confirms GSA leader, top tech official, raft of DoD nominees first appeared on Federal News Network.