Who's really at fault in this $400M State protest saga

The State Department’s nearly two-year struggle to award a nearly $400 million cybersecurity job is on display at the Government Accountability Office.

Over three attempts, the State Department has awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman. Three times it was also protested, only for the corrective action to result in a re-award to Northrop.

A fourth protest was filed when General Dynamics IT objected to the State Department’s latest attempt to fix the procurement.

The $395 million award at stake here is a task order under the CIO-SP3 vehicle, from which the eventual winner will provide cybersecurity services to State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

Northrop won the first attempt in June 2020. That award triggered a protest by General Dynamics IT (the incumbent through its CSRA acquisition) and ManTech. In July 2020, the State Department took a corrective action, so the protests were dismissed by the Government Accountability Office without a ruling on their merits.

The State Department pulled back the award as part of the corrective action.

A second award to Northrop came in May 2021. Protest number two followed from GDIT and for a second time, the State Department took a corrective action and cancelled the Northrop award.

Then in August 2021, the department tried for a third time at an award to Northrop. But there again, GDIT protested. In October, the State Department took another corrective action and pulled back the award.

But GDIT protested almost immediately and before another award could be made. GDIT didn’t think the latest corrective action went far enough to address the problems they identified in their protest.

GAO has ruled against that latest protest. GAO’s decision hasn’t been released yet, so we don’t have specifics on the corrective action.

But now it is back to the State Department to make an award for a fourth time. And I can almost guarantee another protest.

If GDIT gets the award this time, you know Northrop will object. If Northrop wins again, I expect GDIT to resurrect the complaints from its latest protest and then some.

Companies are often painted as the bad guys when you see one of them protesting repeatedly. But I think the opposite is true.

Think about it. The State Department has made three awards and taken the same number of corrective actions. That tells me that they don’t feel they can defend their decision.

It isn’t unusual for this to happen once. A second time is bad but not unheard of.

But three times? C’mon, the agency should be able to get its act together by attempt number three.

Now, we are facing attempt number four. I hope the State Department gets it right, but I’m not sure whether to bet on that.