On November 5th, a man leaves the voting booth at a polling station in Lancaster, New Hampshire, on Election Day.
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The new Trump administration is moving rapidly to rewind years of work to counter the foreign influence of the US election. This is the job that began in Trump terms first after a revelation about the scope and ambitions of Russia’s efforts to shake up the 2016 election.
A team of 10 regional election security advisors from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are familiar with two directly to the issue. Sources say they are taking administrative leave. He spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.
In addition to the disruption of CISA’s work, Attorney General Pam Bondy There are also orders The end of the FBI Task Force to combat foreign influence campaigns in American politics by Russia, China and other countries. order “The foreign impact task force must be dissolved to end free resources to address more pressing priorities and further weaponization risks and mistreatment at the discretion of the prosecutor.” She also rolled back the Department of Justice enforcement of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which has been used to prosecute Americans receiving secret funds from other countries.
Experts working on technology, human rights and digital governance at the US International Development Agency have been unable to do their job during the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down the Trump administration, leaving the gap for Russia and China to intervene. Experts claim that it remains.
During his first term, President Trump frequently aired complaints about allegations that Russia had interfered on his behalf. US government officials have also outlined attempts by enemies like Iran to hurt Trump’s candidates. Trump has also repeatedly claimed that the 2020 US presidential election was “stolen” without evidence, and that CISA directly rebutted it at the time, leading to the fire of the heads of the agency at the time.
CISA and DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
Election security expert NPR deepens its concerns about the Trump administration’s targets of civil servants fighting election threats, from elections and disinformation to local security threats, ransomware to voting technology issues. He said he was doing it. Some employees are still working on CISA’s election security issues, but it is unclear whether they will take administrative leave in the coming weeks, but two sources familiar with CISA’s internal operations said.
“All cuts made to our election security and the malicious foreign influence operations are like giving gifts to foreign enemies such as Russia, China, and Iran on a silver platter,” he said. said Kathy Bouval, president of consulting firm Athena Strategy and former Secretary of State. For Pennsylvania. “It directly strengthens our ability to infiltrate our national security and interfere in elections, making all American citizens more vulnerable.”
Bookbar, who co-chaired the National Secretaries’ Association’s election committee during the 2020 election, was particularly concerned about the loss of cybersecurity assistance to regional election managers. She said that CISA local officers, along with members of the FBI’s Foreign Impact Task Force, are “risqué support” for those who secure state and local elections nationwide, and their losses are costly. He said it was challenging.
Trump signed the bill that created the CISA in 2018
With a statement Trump created it with the signature of the 2018 bill that created the CISA“It was necessary to confront the full range of threats from nation-states, cybercriminals and other malicious actors.
Like several other government agencies responsible for national security and defending the critical US infrastructure, CISA has also undertaken an election security portfolio.
But there was already bad blood between Trump and investigators who tried to explain the impact of widespread Russian disinformation on the 2016 US presidential election. Robert Mueller, a special advisor to the Justice Department, found no evidence to clearly prove that Trump’s campaign conspired with Russian officials to influence the election outcome, but he strengthened Trump’s campaign. and found evidence of Russian interference to slander Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton.
Trump has long called Mueller’s investigation a “horror” that should never happen.
However, during the 2020 US presidential election, Trump spread and promoted more false narratives, including widespread voter fraud, before President Joe Biden finally won. CISA and others have made many of those claims A web page called Rumor Control. Those public contradictions led Trump in part Dismissing Christopher Krebs, then director of CISA.
Since then, Republicans have attacked the CISA, claiming that the agency has surpassed job descriptions and violated conservative freedom of speech, CISA leaders have vehemently denied.
At her confirmation hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem vowed to reduce CISA. She says the agency has done a “far mission”; committed to It limits its role in the fight against online fake news from enemies such as Russia, China and Iran.
In the weeks since Trump was launched for his second term, experts have hoped there might be a window to preserve CISA’s functionality and independence. Republicans tightened their attacks on agents, particularly after the CISA helped to clarify: A widespread Chinese spy campaign It targeted US communications that directly influenced Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The CISA was initially removed from a broader effort to reduce the federal government by President Trump’s government team, known as Government Efficiency (Doge).
However, later on February 5th, eligible CISA employees were offered the opportunity to receive a postponed resignation offer in exchange for an eight-month salary. It remains to be seen whether these offers are legal or whether they will be funded by Congressional budgets from March onwards.
Is there any information you would like to share about ongoing changes across the CISA or the federal government? I’ll reach out to Jenna McLaughlinwho can be used through encrypted communication over the signal of jennamclaughlin.54
