Obama CIO on leave after cuffing of former employee

White House caution

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Government, 13th March 2009 22:36 GMT

Free whitepaper – Dell PowerEdge server benchmarks

America's first federal chief information officer has been placed on leave after one of his former employees was arrested for alleged IT bribery.

The White House tells The Washington Post that federal CIO Vivek Kundra is currently on leave due to "an abundance of caution." President Obama tapped Kundra for the brand new post on March 5.

Prior to joining the feds, the 34-year-old served a chief technology officer for the local Washington, D.C. government, overseeing IT for 86 local agencies spanning 38,000 employees. And on Thursday, a manager in the D.C. CTO office was arrested on charges of bribery, conspiracy, money laundering, and conflict of interest. Forty-year-old Yusuf Acar is suspected of soliciting and accepting bribes in exchange for IT contracts.

Also arrested was Sushil Bansal, president and CEO of IT consultant Advanced Integrated Technologies. The 41-year-old is charged with bribery and money laundering.

Federal authorities say that Kundra is not being investigated in connection with the alleged bribery scam. He is "on leave until further details [about the arrests] become known."

As federal CIO, Kundra has been directed to "work to ensure that [the US is] using the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations." Presumably, this will involve Google. Evidence of Kundra's Google love can be seen here. ®

Free whitepaper – Dell IT infrastructure services brochure