Salient CRGT, Inc. (HS002125QE008)

B-423640.2,B-423640.4 Jan 05, 2026 Jump To FULL REPORT VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Salient CRGT, Inc. (Salient), of Fairfax, Virginia, protests the issuance of a federal supply schedule (FSS) order to Omni Fed LLC (Omni), of Gainesville, Virginia, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. HS002125QE008, issued by the Department of Defense (DOD), Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) for information technology (IT) cloud services and development, security, and operations (DevSecOps) services. The protester challenges the agency's evaluation of both Salient's and Omni's quotations and the resulting best-value tradeoff source selection decision. We deny the protest. View Decision Decision DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Matter of: Salient CRGT, Inc. File: B-423640.2; B-423640.4 Date: January 5, 2026 J. Andrew Jackson, Esq., Ryan P. McGovern, Esq., and Alexandra K. Heyl, Esq., Jones Day, for the protester. Damien C. Specht, Esq., James A. Tucker, Esq., and Victoria Dalcourt Angle, Morrison Foerster, LLP for Omni Fed, LLC, the intervenor. Matthew T. Donahue, Esq., Katie L. Oyler, Esq., Tiffany J. Williams, Esq., and Cathryn F. Beaman, Esq, Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, for the agency. Heather Self, Esq., and Peter H. Tran, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protest arguing agency unreasonably assessed the relevancy of awardee's experience and assigned a rating of high confidence is denied where the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation. 2. Protest challenging evaluation of adequacy of awardee's price is denied where the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation. 3. Alleged errors with the agency's evaluation of the protester's own quotation provide no basis to sustain protest where protester cannot demonstrate it would have been competitively prejudiced by the alleged errors. DECISION Salient CRGT, Inc.[1] (Salient), of Fairfax, Virginia, protests the issuance of a federal supply schedule (FSS) order to Omni Fed LLC (Omni), of Gainesville, Virginia, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. HS002125QE008, issued by the Department of Defense (DOD), Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) for information technology (IT) cloud services and development, security, and operations (DevSecOps) services. The protester challenges the agency's evaluation of both Salient's and Omni's quotations and the resulting best-value tradeoff source selection decision. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND On January 24, 2025, using the procedures of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 8.4, the agency issued the solicitation to holders of FSS contracts for IT professional services under special item number 54151S. Contracting Officer's Statement (COS) at 3; Agency Report (AR), Tab 5a, RFQ at 2.[2] The solicitation's stated purpose was to procure “National Background Investigation System (NBIS), NBIS Cloud and DevSecOps Managed Service Provider (MSP) services as defined in the Performance Work Statement (PWS).” RFQ at 2. The solicitation describes the NBIS as “the federal Government's one-stop-shop IT system for end-to-end personnel vetting--from initiation and application to background investigation, adjudication, and continuous vetting.” AR, Tab 5d, RFQ attach. 2, PWS at 4. The solicitation explained: The Cloud and DevSecOps MSP will underpin all software development across numerous other contracts and task orders issued by the NBIS program. The NBIS system has historically been comprised of a compilation of IT resources from several Agencies, but operated as a large, monolithic, on-premises system. This structure has led to NBIS being riddled with cybersecurity issues and IT modernization failures, to the point that GAO and Congress have issued several directives to DCSA to rectify the system. To secure and modernize the system, the PMO[[3]] will systematically modernize each component of NBIS via user-focused agile best practices, and transform the monolith into modular, cloud-based services that are secure and scalable. The Cloud & DevSecOps MSP contact will be a key enabler of the entire NBIS modernization, underpinning all software development and cloud capabilities. Id.; RFQ at 2. The solicitation contemplated issuance of a single order with both fixed-price and time‑and-materials contract line item numbers (CLINs) with a 1‑year base period and four 1-year option periods. AR, Tab 5c, RFQ attach. 1, Instructions and Evaluation Criteria at 18, 20, 22.