Ex-Justice Officials Join Microsoft, Raise Security Concerns

0:00On March 23rd, two former top-justice department officials have landed high-level jobs at Microsoft, raising eyebrows over their past roles in, approving the company's government cloud service known as GCC. Melinda Rogers, once the department's chief information officer, is now a partner in Microsoft's enterprise cloud division, Lisa Monaco, the former deputy attorney general, serves as the company's global affairs president. Before a major hack, federal auditors flagged that Microsoft had trouble proving GCC security for government use. Still, in early 2020, the Justice Department greenlit it after internal reviews, putting GCC on the official federal cloud marketplace and, giving Microsoft a strong vote of confidence? That changed in 2023 when Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke in, stealing emails and data from key figures like the commerce, secretary and the US ambassador to China. After the breach, Microsoft officials leaned on the Justice Department to pressure auditors into full approval.

1:02Despite ongoing doubts about the system's security posture, GCC ultimately got the green light. Microsoft insists the hiring swallow all ethics rules with no ties to the approval process, but the close connections highlight ongoing concerns about government and tech industry overlaps.