CISA Cybersec & Infrast Sec Agy

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PJT 2025 NOEM TARGETS HIRES CLETA PROTEGE HEATHER HONEY

see Krebbs fired by trump for saying election legit XO LAWFARE

SEE NICK ANDERSON GOP VA

biden admin heAD spox very good

see disinfo

NOEM ATTACKS

DOGE? MIKE BENZ; HAD TO CUT OFF BUYOUT BC SO MANY BAILED; MADHI GOTT FAIL

SEE CYBERSECURITY HEGSETH BONDI --> SEAN DUFFY?! // BONDI, KASH BONGINO

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an pp 10 26

A few months into President Donald Trump’s second term, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security made an unusual request of its agency focused on cybersecurity: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it.

The appointees wanted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to procure the machine, examine it and report back the findings so they could be given to the White House, according to two former administration officials with knowledge of the request.

The proposition was shocking to CISA’s career staffers, according to one of the former officials. CISA typically worked to thwart hackers. Moreover, the agency had been directed not to alert the voting machine company if it uncovered flaws, contrary to its standard practices. The request made the CISA employees fear they were being asked to take part in political interference.

“My thought was they could keep it in their back pocket to invalidate any [election] results they don’t like,” one of the former officials said. “This goes against everything CISA represents.”

The CISA employees repeatedly told the political appointees that their request was impossible, in part because the agents capable of pulling off such an operation had just been laid off by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative. The appointees eventually stopped pressing CISA.

Though not acted on, the request shows how the Trump administration has tried to use the agency for its own ends while draining it of resources for one of its critical missions: protecting the nation’s voting systems.

In Trump’s second term, his administration has laid off or pushed out more than 1,000 CISA employees, shrinking the agency by about one-third. The president’s 2027 budget proposal would reduce funding for the agency by another $700 million, which could necessitate 900 additional layoffs.

In response, Democratic lawmakers have called for an investigation into CISA’s ability to do its job and demanded answers as to why federal funds are not being used to support election security as directed by Congress.

Since Trump signed the CISA Act in 2018, the agency has worked with state authorities and voting machine vendors to help protect election infrastructure from cyberattacks. During Trump’s second term, though, CISA has abandoned much of this work. Several state election authorities said the agency provided them no assistance — and no explanation for its absence — during the most critical planning stages for the upcoming midterms.

“There is a difference between deprioritizing and being nonexistent,” said Ryan Macias, an election technology and cybersecurity expert who has worked as a consultant for CISA. In 2025 and through mid-September 2026 — when the bulk of preparations for the election typically would have been completed — “they were nonexistent. Literally nonexistent.”

While Trump has repeatedly warned that America’s elections are vulnerable to hacking, in some cases repeating disproven claims, experts said his administration is undermining the federal government’s role in helping secure them.

Though CISA re-emerged in September with a last-minute security plan for the election, some state officials told ProPublica they fear that what is left of the agency has been compromised by a conspiracy-obsessed presidential administration. In recent months, in reviving debunked theories about the 2020 election, the Trump administration has declassified troves of records, including sensitive material that state officials provided to CISA. Some state authorities said they no longer trusted the administration enough to share information with CISA, a key to the agency’s success in past elections.

“They’ve violated the entire premise of that information-sharing relationship,” said one former high-ranking federal cybersecurity official who now advises state governments on national security. “There’s no fucking way they’re ever going to give any information to CISA. And it’s unclear if they ever will in the future.”

A spokesperson for the White House declined an interview request but defended Trump’s handling of election security in an emailed statement. “President Trump has done more than any other President to ensure we have free and fair elections,” said Lauren Bis.

Bis referred specific questions about CISA’s handling of elections to DHS. DHS and CISA did not respond to interview requests or to a detailed list of questions.

“There’s no fucking way [state governments are] ever going to give any information to CISA. And it’s unclear if they ever will in the future.”

A former federal cybersecurity official who advises state governments

Current and former CISA employees and state election officials describe an agency that has become significantly less equipped to help states fight legitimate cyber threats. State leaders say they have used their own resources to shore up gaps left by CISA, such as paying for sensor technology that can detect unusual activity in election networks. But some services, like intel on foreign actors, can’t be replicated. Some people interviewed said they were worried that Trump and his allies continue to ratchet up rhetoric about voting security, particularly about threats to voting machines. Officials in one large voting jurisdiction said they have met privately with machine vendors to come up with a contingency plan if the federal government seizes their machines or declares them unusable.

“I don’t pay attention to what the president says. I pay attention to what his administration does,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said. “And what they’ve done is basically cut us off and left us on our own.”

Defending elections from hackers wasn’t always part of DHS’s remit.

Throughout the mid-1990s and 2000s, a series of cyberattacks rocked the federal government, demonstrating the emerging threat. In 2007, hackers broke into the Pentagon and stole terabytes of sensitive data. The digital heist, by an unknown foreign adversary, was so damaging that one intelligence leader later described it as an “espionage Pearl Harbor.”

Under George W. Bush, DHS underwent a reorganization to more effectively combat terrorism and respond to disasters like Hurricane Katrina. The department dedicated resources under an office called the National Protection and Programs Directorate to help fortify advanced cyber defense systems and important infrastructure. The office’s work ranged from helping secure events like the Super Bowl to protecting chemical plants to issuing cybersecurity warnings to the private sector and the public. In 2018, Trump signed a bill making the office a stand-alone agency, allowing for more federal funding and transforming it into, essentially, the ultimate tech support desk for anything DHS designated “critical infrastructure.”

The bill renamed the agency CISA.

Though Trump helped create CISA, he didn’t much appreciate the work the agency did under its old name to expose the extent of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Russian agents had unleashed a massive disinformation campaign, with a Kremlin-backed troll farm creating thousands of social media accounts posing as Americans and promoting Trump, according to bipartisan reports from the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released before the 2020 election. A dozen Russian military agents were indicted for what the Justice Department described as “a sustained effort to hack into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.”

Trump publicly downplayed this interference, but DHS leadership saw the Russia attack as an escalation. In January 2017, before Trump took office, DHS upgraded America’s elections to the status of critical infrastructure. This placed the polls and all voting technology used in federal elections under the watch of what would soon become CISA.

To carry out this function, CISA needed help. But states and voting machine vendors were wary about sharing data on weaknesses in voting systems, fearing it could be exploited if certain details were to become public. State officials were also reluctant to cede any role in election preparation to the federal government.

Gradually, though, CISA and state election officials negotiated a fragile trust. At its center was a commitment: The sensitive information states and vendors shared with CISA would be kept confidential.

“It took years and years of building trust, of talking to election officials, of hiring people with elections experience who could be validators for the work that CISA wanted to do, before they finally built strong working relationships,” said Derek Tisler, who specializes in election security as counsel for the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan institute based out of New York University School of Law.

Under Director Chris Krebs, CISA hosted penetration testing in which its agents would try to hack into a state’s system to locate weaknesses that could then be patched, along with tabletop exercises simulating a series of potential catastrophes around elections. CISA also offered regular secret-level briefings to secretaries of state to share federal intelligence. And CISA paid for sensor technology that looked for potential malicious online activity on election networks, notifying officials about emerging threats.

“The staffing was there, the expertise was there, the visibility was there, the funding was there,” Macias said.

The consortium shared data as run of the mill as spambots as well as more serious threats. If Virginia caught unusual activity in its system, it could let other states know to be vigilant.

While CISA had prepared for attacks from the Chinese and Russian governments, or lone wolf hackers, few there had expected the threat to elections would come from inside the White House. But when Trump refused to concede to Joe Biden in 2020, claiming the vote had been rigged, CISA became a key component of the guardrails that ultimately led to the election results being certified.

The agency, in a statement co-signed by secretaries of state and voting machine vendors, vouched for the election’s integrity, calling it “the most secure in American history.” When Krebs publicly rebutted claims amplified by the White House as “unsubstantiated” or “technically incoherent,” Trump fired him over Twitter.

As Congress prepared to vote on certifying the election results, it was members of CISA, along with the FBI, who convinced then-Attorney General Bill Barr that the conspiracy theories embraced by the president could be explained by human error, not systemic fraud or hacking.

When Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, his administration immediately started to dismantle CISA. The administrative notices were sent out just a couple of weeks after the inauguration and included the team in charge of dispelling disinformation.

For the employees under the DOGE microscope, work became impossible, said one former senior CISA employee. “Those groups couldn’t even order a pizza.”

DOGE laid off people critical to the agency’s election work, including those who’d worked closely with states. The Trump administration cut funding for the technology that monitored web and election servers, blinding the federal government to breaches it had detected.

When it came time for states to prepare for the 2026 midterms, CISA had disappeared.

On the evening of July 16, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, dozens of election officials and their staffs gathered for a reception near Mount Rushmore. It was the third night of an annual conference for secretaries of state, drawing participants from red and blue states. They’d spent the week discussing state voter roll maintenance and voter ID — issues that at times made for disagreements.

At about 8 p.m., a wave of discomfort swept through the crowd, visible on attendees’ faces as they glanced frequently at their phones, according to people at the event. Any minute now, Trump was going to address the nation on election security. Some at the reception worried he would declare a national emergency, as his allies had urged him to do months earlier, and use it as a pretext to direct the government to seize voting machines.

Then reports on the speech began rolling in, and the mood shifted. The claims Trump was making were unsubstantiated and outlandish. Many had been examined ad nauseam, including by those at the reception, and roundly debunked. The collective anxiety that was palpable moments earlier melted away, as many saw the speech as another attempt to revive disproved theories unlikely to be taken seriously by most voters.

“Everyone just sort of guffawed and put their phones away and went to the bar,” recalled Quinn Raymond, co-founder of VoteShield, a nonprofit that works with states to help monitor voter registration data, who was at the event.

Still, if the speech made little impact, records published by the Trump administration to support the president’s claims damaged the already eroding relationship between CISA and state election officials. The material included raw information states had shared with the agency that was supposed to remain private, such as a log of communications from Election Day 2020 detailing activity being monitored in several states.

“It betrayed the trust of all partners who were willing to share information at the time,” said Geoff Hale, who worked on CISA’s elections team from the agency’s inception until last year. Now he specializes in election security at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit that advocates for digital and civil rights.

Bis, the White House spokesperson, denied that the Trump administration broke any agreements in releasing the information. “The release of such information is exactly the sort of transparency news organizations should applaud,” she said. Bis also defended Trump’s speech, saying it had been fact-checked “by the agencies whose evidence was released and did not mischaracterize any information.”

Hale and others said the speech was one of several instances demonstrating the Trump administration’s reckless attitude toward sensitive data collected by CISA. Earlier this year, Politico reported that acting CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala had uploaded records to ChatGPT, even though DHS had barred its employees from using the unsecure program. A CISA spokesperson told Politico that Gottumukkala had been permitted to use the technology for a “short-term and limited” basis.

Last May, an independent journalist named Brian Krebs exposed that CISA published private data, including passwords, cloud keys and other information, on its public GitHub page, in a folder labeled “Private-CISA.” A CISA spokesperson told the journalist there was no indication that sensitive data was compromised.

Some state election authorities were also alarmed to see the lengths to which the Trump administration went to legitimize the president’s fixation on the 2020 race.

In fall 2025, Missouri election officials produced a memo stating Andrew McCoy Warner, a Department of Justice official and prominent 2020 election conspiracy theorist, had called several clerks asking for access to voting machines. Tulsi Gabbard, then the director of national intelligence, had also led an operation in Puerto Rico to seize election machines. When the private cybersecurity contractor hired to examine the machines, Mojave Research Inc., failed to find evidence supporting claims about 2020, the federal government became “dissastified” with its services and stopped renewing its contract, its CEO later told reporters.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters in August that Mojave’s work ceased because it had completed its contract. Testifying before Congress in March, Gabbard said the seizing of voting machines came at the request of an assistant U.S. attorney in Puerto Rico.

“What happened in the second Trump administration is from almost day one — I mean, literally the first two months — they took all that was built up by Trump 1 and just decimated it,” said David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit that works with state election authorities. “Election officials lost trust in the federal government.”

It didn’t help that, in his speech, the president mocked CISA’s defense of the 2020 election, calling the statement about it being the most secure in history a “very pat line” concocted as part of a deep-state cover-up. One former career CISA employee described being crestfallen at the Trump administration’s erosion of all they’d accomplished.

“We worked so hard to build that trusted relationship,” said Caitlin Durkovich, former DHS assistant secretary for infrastructure protection and co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Civira Partners. “I don’t know how you put it back together.”

A few weeks after Trump’s speech, the state election officials gathered once more, this time for a video call with Nick Andersen, who had replaced Gottumukkala as CISA’s acting director.

Though the primaries were already under way, this was the first time many had met Andersen, a former cybersecurity adviser to Trump’s White House who had joined CISA a year earlier. Andersen is also a district representative for the Republican Party in Virginia, according to the party’s website. In March, he gave a speech to the Fairfax GOP chapter titled “Fighting Democrat Redistricting.”

Speaking over video in August, the boyish-faced former Marine Corps engineer announced that DHS was preparing to release a plan on how it would work together with state officials to secure the election, according to five people who were present at the video meeting, some of whom shared notes with ProPublica.

Many on the call were stunned at what they perceived as a lack of understanding of election planning. Early voting for the general election was just around the corner. They had spent over a year preparing for the midterms, and there was no more time for ambitious work.

Some peppered Andersen with questions: Where had CISA been when there was still time to make improvements?

Andersen blamed any lapses or perceived breaches in trust on the federal government shutdown in fall 2025, twirling his pen uncomfortably and sipping from a Monster energy drink.

Fontes, Arizona’s secretary of state, was blunt about his feelings regarding working with Andersen and CISA, according to several of the people on the call.

“I told him I didn’t trust him,” Fontes recalled in an interview. “I did raise my voice a little bit, because I’m frustrated — very frustrated — that they would have the temerity to come in, clear the entire deck of competent professionals, stop supporting the states, eviscerate the coordination efforts that they had and then suddenly come in and say: ‘Oh, we’re from the federal government. We’re here to help.’”

Indeed, one recently departed CISA official said attempting to do the agency’s typical election work now would be futile. In previous years, CISA had finished almost all its preparations with the states by Labor Day.

“That ship has sailed,” the official said.

CISA published its security plan for the 2026 election on Sept. 24. The 13-page document describes how, over the past two years, CISA has “recommitted to its statutory mission and remains resolute in strengthening the security of elections.”

State officials said their planning will ensure a secure election, even without help from CISA. Yet they and cybersecurity experts worry that Trump will say the election was hacked if Republicans don’t win in November.

The security plan calls for “leveraging collaborative partnerships” with states the agency has abandoned since Trump took office. Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state, said she’d welcome that but was skeptical of the agency’s motivations.

“For CISA to promise election officials now, at this point in time, that they are going to be a resource for the 2026 election is too little, too late,” she said.

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MMA

Tina Peters allegedly met with Trump to discuss election plans. Here's what that could mean for the midterms.

Written by Kayla Gogarty & John Whitehouse

Research contributions from Alex Kaplan & John Knefel

Published 10/06/26

Former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk Tina Peters, who was released from prison on June 1 after being sentenced to nearly nine years for actions related to tampering with voting machines following the 2020 election, allegedly met with President Donald Trump on October 5 to discuss the midterm elections.

Tina Peters allegedly met with President Trump – again.

• Speaking on Eric Bolling’s Real America’s Voice show, former Trump Justice Department official Ed Martin said that Peters was “in the Oval Office meeting with the president on election integrity” hours earlier.
• Video
• Share
• Citation
• From the October 5, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's Bolling!

• ED MARTIN (GUEST): Well, let me break some news. This is a big deal, Eric, and I'm — you're the first person that knows. I'm going to say something — just hours ago, maybe two hours ago. Tina Peters, you know, from Colorado, was in the Oval Office meeting with the president on election integrity, and they were talking about the plans.

• And the one thing that they know is that Secretary Mullin of the Department of Homeland Security came out in late August and conceded and said, as a matter of law, a finding that there is — the machines for voting, the election voting machines use parts from China and Russia and foreign places and are therefore compromised. That's what Mullin said. That finding, when he finished that finding, he then said, and I have a billion dollars to help you states to do something other than use machines that are compromised. And, again, my point is this.

• You talk about local. It is a local election. I ran the election board in St. Louis. There is local control. However, the laws that govern the system, like safety and national security, are federal laws.

• And so when Tina Peters, you know, famous Colorado clerk, was in the Oval Office today just two hours ago talking about this question, the president's taking it seriously. If the Congress won't pass the SAVE America Act, and they won't, then the president's going to have to do what he's going to do. And it is not a local issue when it's national security, and it's clearly national security. So we'll see how it plays out.

• Peters has claimed to regularly be in contact with Trump administration officials, including by text, and said in late August that she has been to the White House six times. She also has thanked White House staff for facilitating her release from prison. In July, Peters claimed that Trump ordered his staff to do what she recommended, saying on a livestream, “Yesterday, when I was with the president, he talked — and I can’t get into the plan — but we talked, he basically said to his lead counsel to do what I was asking.”

• Peters has also recently claimed to have been in contact with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Attorney General Todd Blanche’s deputy chief of staff Shane Hedges, and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon.

• Martin recently left Trump’s DOJ to — at least according to the president in a Truth Social post — “fight Legal Battles” related to the midterms. Martin and Peters have a history together. In 2025, Martin told Steve Bannon that he had been working for two months to find “a path” to her release. He also reportedly “discussed election security issues last year” with Peters’ associates and forwarded their pitch for a ban on voting machines to another senior Justice Department official.

What is Tina Peters’ plan for the election?

• Peters has been vocal in far-right circles about her election plan. As Media Matters’ Alex Kaplan documented in late July:

• The new proposal, dated July 22 and called the “100-Day Risk Mitigation Election Plan” and “Operational Guidance for the November Federal Election – 2026,” urges the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — an agency housed under the Department of Homeland Security that is “one of the main federal partners for states on election security, sharing intelligence on potential threats to voting infrastructure and providing quick regional support,” per MS NOW — to “concentrate on six achievable measures,” including “transition[ing] the general electorate away from ballot-marking devices (BMD) to hand-marked paper ballots” and “insisting that the official count can only be certified after a full hand-count of every ballot.”

• It also lays out an implementation framework that would involve classifying all counties based on current election processes and their ability to transition ahead of the midterms and then providing each county with implementation plans. During a podcast interview discussing the plan, Peters acknowledged that “CISA is not a forceful body that they can make people do things, but they can actually make recommendations,” and suggested that DHS could use a recently announced grant for states “that comply with certain things like paper ballots and so on and so forth” as an “incentive.”
• …
• Peters released the new proposal, which she called a “practical election-security plan,” on her website along with a July 24 letter to the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency thanking him “for meeting with us … and for giving us the opportunity to present our concerns and proposed path forward for the 2026 federal election.”

• Peters’ plan also requires that jurisdictions must “apply the ‘Bank-Teller Method’: independently hand-count every ballot for federal contests before certification and reconcile that count with the tabulator result.”

• As the midterms approach, Peters has continued to promote versions of her plan and give additional details, such as arguing that Trump already has the power to involve DHS and the Commerce Department through an executive order on critical infrastructure. Election deniers like Peter Ticktin, Jerome Corsi, Cleta Mitchell, and Wayne Allyn Root have made similar arguments about Trump already having authority.

• Video
• Citation
• From a video uploaded on Tina Peters' website on August 26, 2026
• TINA PETERS: Mr. President, it is time to treat America’s elections like the critical infrastructure that they are. We do not have months. We have days. Mr. President, our own government and your administration has documented vulnerabilities in election systems and identified foreign adversary threats. Voter databases, poll books, election networks, and voting technology are all at risk.

• The authority already exists. The national emergency under Executive Order 13873 is already in place. What is needed now is cabinet-level direction, direction of DHS, CISA, the EAC, FEMA, the intelligence community, and Commerce to immediately execute the 2026 mitigation plan.
• ...
• The goal is simple and absolutely achievable, Mr. President: Secure and reduce electronic dependence, wherever possible, preserve physical paper evidence, and independently verify electronic results before certification. CISA should issue immediate cybersecurity guidance and assistance to transition all counties to handmark paper ballots, and make sure every electronic tabulation is human verified. FEMA should identify available funding for securing the elections.
• High-risk jurisdictions should receive rapid technical assistance, and Commerce should begin a foreign adversary election technology review. Please, Mr. President, set September 8 as the first deadline and make every electronic result independently checkable.

• This is a known national security issue. The complete risk mitigation plan is available.
• ...
• We still have time to act, but the clock is running. Please direct your cabinet to move now. Our team stands ready to help.
• God bless you, Mr. President. This plan — I’m confident — will save our country.

What has Peters said about the president having authority to intervene in the midterms?

• Peters has been vocal that the president has the power to intervene in the midterms through executive power. (Experts have harshly criticized this analysis.)

• Peters said during a June 14 stream following her release from prison that she had spoken with the president and she believes “Trump could sign an executive order to get rid of the machines and say that they are — that a vendor cannot have that much influence over our elections.” She also said on June 25 that “we’ve got to get rid of the machines” and “mail-in ballots,” and Trump “needs to sign an executive order ... saying it’s unconstitutional that these things are allowed to be done.” Election denial activist Jerome Corsi has claimed that Peters will “play a major role in one of the key factors in Trump ultimately declaring the need for the elections to be supervised by the federal government.”

• Similar to what Martin told Eric Bolling on October 5, Peters has grounded her election rhetoric in terms of foreign interference and national security, saying, “There’s no security threshold when you have foreign agents that have proprietary authority, power, over the things that are used for our most sacred right, which is to vote who we want to represent us.”
• She has also claimed that Trump should take action against voting machines because some of the parts are “made in China.” Notably, Peters has also urged the military to get involved, saying: “It's very important to — for the Department of War — now I'm saying the Department of War because this is an international event that is going on with stealing our elections. Pete Hegseth needs to go in and demand to have these machines in their custody, and also the Mesa County machines. They're still out there.”

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? AN 9 26

'Slow-motion horror': Trump program hands a road map to foreign hackers

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MMA

Tina Peters and other election deniers claim they've pitched the Trump administration on a midterm “election-security plan”

07/30/26

Multiple figures behind the proposal have also urged Trump to declare a “national emergency” over the midterm elections

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published 07/30/26

A group of activists in the election denial community — including Tina Peters, a former Colorado election official convicted of charges related to the 2020 election, and Clay Parikh, who has served as a “special government employee” for the Trump administration — claim they presented a key government agency responsible for protecting elections with “operational guidance” for the midterms in the form of a “risk mitigation” and “practical election-security plan” to implement in the 100 days before the elections. The proposal appears to be the latest attempt to push the Trump administration to take over election processes ahead of the midterms.

The new proposal, dated July 22 and called the “100-Day Risk Mitigation Election Plan” and “Operational Guidance for the November Federal Election – 2026,” urges the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — an agency housed under the Department of Homeland Security that is “one of the main federal partners for states on election security, sharing intelligence on potential threats to voting infrastructure and providing quick regional support,” per MS NOW — to “concentrate on six achievable measures,” including “transition[ing] the general electorate away from ballot-marking devices (BMD) to hand-marked paper ballots” and “insisting that the official count can only be certified after a full hand-count of every ballot.”

It also lays out an implementation framework that would involve classifying all counties based on current election processes and their ability to transition ahead of the midterms and then providing each county with implementation plans. During a podcast interview discussing the plan, Peters acknowledged that “CISA is not a forceful body that they can make people do things, but they can actually make recommendations,” and suggested that DHS could use a recently announced grant for states “that comply with certain things like paper ballots and so on and so forth” as an “incentive.”

Voting machines and tabulators have been the target of election conspiracy theories for years, sparking campaigns to replace them with full hand-counts. As experts have explained, a system of hand-counted paper ballots would be less accurate, more expensive, impractical, and “potentially riskier than the current system of machines with auditable paper trails that almost all cities and states use.” Studies have actually shown that “hand-counting ballots produces more errors than machine tabulation,” and as the Brennan Center for Justice has explained, “Many checks exist to ensure that voting machines count ballots correctly and produce accurate election results.”

Peters released the new proposal, which she called a “practical election-security plan,” on her website along with a July 24 letter to the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency thanking him “for meeting with us … and for giving us the opportunity to present our concerns and proposed path forward for the 2026 federal election.”

These are the figures who signed the letter to CISA:

Peters, who publicly released the plan, is the former county clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, and was “convicted in 2024 for her role in a brazen plot to examine voting machines under her control after the 2020 election” before Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis commuted her sentence. She met with Trump at the Oval Office in late June, later claiming that she told him, “If we don’t fix these machines, if we don’t get rid of these machines, we’re going to lose the next election.”

Parikh, who has served as a “special government employee” in the Trump administration and who was cited in the FBI’s warrant for its raid of a Fulton County, Georgia, election facility. Parikh was also involved in Kari Lake’s unsuccessful legal effort to claim fraud was involved in her 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election defeat and has reportedly “served as a witness in other cases … challenging the use of voting machines.”

Conrad Reynolds, a podcast host who reportedly ”thinks Arkansas voting machines could be flipping votes” and who was involved with Restore Election Integrity Arkansas and its push for an amendment “aimed at requiring all elections in Arkansas to be conducted with paper ballots and removing language in the Arkansas Constitution that permits elections to be conducted by voting machines.” Reynolds has also run the Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative, which has aimed for “getting rid of voting machines” in favor of paper ballots.

Will Huff, who often co-hosts Reynolds’ podcast and has pushed election-related conspiracy theories about “dirty voter rolls” and “the mail-in ballot scheme.” Huff has also been involved with Restore Election Integrity Arkansas and the Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative.

Peters also explained the proposal during a July 27 podcast appearance, claiming that Trump's July 16 speech indicated “a lot has come out about the vulnerabilities of our election infrastructure.”

Video

Citation

From the July 27, 2026, edition of America, Can We Talk?, streamed on Rumble

TINA PETERS (GUEST): Now, so — and that’s in that 14-page memo to CISA. But here’s what you can do. If we cannot physically get rid of the machines before November, then having — you know, taking the preliminary count that comes from the machines, but not certifying the election until — and however long it takes — until finishing up the hand-count. Then, if those two things don’t meet, then then you know.

So it’s a way if you’re — if you use that as your preliminary results and then you have — I’m going to say it again — then you have an actual hand-count, however long it takes to get it done, and then you have the certification. The thing of it is is that a lot of the judges that are put in the place to certify the results are taking the word of an electronic device. They can't actually see that, yes, we had a group of people, Democrat and Republican, that have checked this out.

It’s just like, you would always check your bank ledger, right? You just, you know, check, make sure everything is, you know, before you realize that it’s valid. That’s what we need. And if it take — right now, they’re taking how many weeks to finish an election anyway, right?

Additionally, Peters said on the podcast that she had urged Trump during their Oval Office meeting to fire members of the Election Assistance Commission — which Trump subsequently did.

Trump has taken actions to expand his control over election processes, and election deniers have been proposing policies for even more power ahead of the midterms

In recent months, Trump and his right-wing media allies have advocated for passage of the SAVE America Act and other policies to increase federal control of the midterms. As USA Today reported, “Trump is working to gain unprecedented control of the 2026 U.S. midterm elections” with “a series of new assertions of presidential power.”

These actions have included firing key leaders of the federal Election Assistance Commission, putting election deniers in administration positions that oversee elections, and issuing executive orders that would tighten rules for mail-in voting and create a federal list of U.S. citizens eligible to vote.

ProPublica also noted that Trump “eviscerat[ed] CISA” at the start of his second term, replaced career election specialists at the Department of Homeland Security with his allies, including some who have ties to the election denial movement, and “discarded or diminished other federal initiatives with roles in protecting election integrity or blocking foreign interference.”

Right-wing media and election deniers have called for the president to further expand his power by issuing a national emergency executive order that would supposedly give Trump “essentially king-like powers” over the midterms. Two of the signatories of the letter to CISA — Reynolds and Huff — have called for the declaration of such a “national emergency,” and Peters has said she believes “Trump could sign an executive order to get rid of the machines and say that they are — that a vendor cannot have that much influence over our elections.”

As part of those calls, election deniers reportedly circulated a draft of a proposed executive order within the administration, and right-wing media figures appear to be weaving together a narrative about foreign interference in American elections by countries like China and Venezuela that could be used as a “predicate” for a national emergency.

The new proposal to CISA from Peters and the others in the election denial community appears to be the latest attempt to control election processes for the midterms.

//

Election deniers reach a fever pitch calling for a “national emergency” declaration so Trump can give himself “king-like powers” over the midterms

06/30/26 10:00 AM EDT

The plot to subvert the midterms is getting stranger and more dangerous

07/02/26 10:05 AM EDT

Election deniers have reportedly coordinated with the Trump White House on a draft executive order declaring a “national emergency” over elections

02/26/26

-=-=-=

7 26

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After once trying to gut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Politico reports that President Donald Trump and his allies are now desperate to rebuild it amid their mounting fears surrounding the midterms.

"The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been castigated by the Trump administration over its past efforts to call out election-related disinformation," the Wednesday report detailed. "But new fears about artificial intelligence-powered hacking and the security of the upcoming midterm elections have lifted the agency from exile."

Since Trump's return to the White House, CISA has suffered a "torrent of punitive measures" from Republicans, largely stemming from the president's personal vendetta against its past leadership. Former CISA Director Christopher Krebs famously called the 2020 presidential election the "most secure in American history," directly refuting Trump's "Big Lie" about widespread election fraud costing him the race.

Now, however, "a growing number of Republicans are advocating for rehiring staff and restoring funding to the nation’s cyber agency," with GOP Reps. Andrew Garbarino of New York and Don Bacon of Nebraska, both of whom head up "key House panels with oversight of federal cyber policy." In recent months, the pair have been working quietly "to convince Republican colleagues that CISA urgently needs more resources because of the critical role it plays in securing the nation’s electoral process and critical systems, including water treatment plants and energy grids." There are mounting fears that the agency has been cut back so badly that it would not be able to respond to new AI-driven cyberattacks against U.S. elections.

“Unfortunately, I have colleagues that focus on the mis- and disinformation part of CISA, and that has turned them off to the entire agency,” Garbarino said at the recent Homeland Security and Defense Forum, further noting China's AI capabilities are “starting to show other members” how vital CISA actually is.

Bacon, meanwhile, argued that the initial GOP backlash against CISA had gone about things the wrong way.

"I’m a big proponent of CISA. If you don’t like what it’s doing, get new leadership; don’t fire a third of its people ... because they’re the ones who defend our private sector, our energy grid and our elections,” Bacon said.

"While the Trump administration initially requested around $2 billion for CISA in fiscal 2027, House lawmakers have boosted that number to $2.4 billion — and it could still increase as the appropriations process continues in the Senate," Politico explained. "This number, though, is still less than CISA received under the Biden administration, when the agency was given close to $3 billion annually. These funds will likely place CISA in a better position to help lead the administration’s response to securing frontier AI models and fortifying the federal government against AI-powered cyberattacks — an issue that has overtaken Washington in recent months."

AN 4 26

Top government cybersecurity agency 'left behind' with no access to key software - Alternet.org

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PP

Heather Honey, a high-profile denier of Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, has been appointed to a senior position in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in which she’ll help oversee the nation’s election infrastructure.

Honey is a protege of Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results. In 2024, ProPublica reported that Honey had played a key role in Mitchell’s behind-the-scenes effort to change Georgia’s election rules to allow Republican officials to contest a potential Trump loss in that year’s presidential race. Honey also promoted election conspiracy theories, including one Trump cited in a speech to his followers before they stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Though states do the on-the-ground work of running elections, DHS supports them with tasks beyond their capacities, such as protecting IT infrastructure and voter databases from foreign intrusions. The agency, with bipartisan support, took on this role in the aftermath of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Experts on voting and state election officials warned that Honey’s appointment as DHS’ deputy assistant secretary of election integrity could erode trust between state and federal officials, prompting states not to share information with the agency.

“We are witnessing a dangerous trend: the elevation of known bad-faith actors like Heather Honey,” said Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, in a statement, citing Honey’s “well-documented history of spreading election lies that have been debunked in court.”

Fontes called her involvement with DHS “deeply troubling” and said “when the agency gives a platform to individuals who have actively worked to erode public trust, it becomes harder to view DHS as a reliable partner in election security.”

A DHS spokesperson did not answer questions from ProPublica on Honey’s appointment or the exact nature of her responsibilities. Honey didn’t respond to calls or emails. The White House also didn’t respond to a request for comment. Her name is listed on the organization’s leadership structure online, and her appointment was first reported by the website Democracy Docket.

In the first Trump administration, the federal government set up programs designed to shield U.S. elections from foreign interference, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an arm of DHS. But Trump soured on this and other initiatives after the director of CISA publicly rebutted his claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Since the start of the second Trump presidency, the administration has gutted those programs, cutting hundreds of employees at CISA. Its director, Chris Krebs, is now under federal investigation, DHS has said; Krebs told CNN that the investigation appeared to be an act of political retribution. The Justice Department has also rolled back a program aimed at combatting foreign influence campaigns. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a memorandum that the Justice Department’s program was disbanded to “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”

David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit focused on building trust in American elections, said the cuts had dismantled “nearly all” of DHS’ capacity to protect election infrastructure. He said state elections officials feared that Honey’s appointment, combined with the program cuts, signaled the Trump administration’s intent to eliminate bulwarks of fair U.S. elections.

“The hiring of an election conspiracy theorist with no election knowledge or expertise is the culmination of this reversal,” Becker said. “DHS now appears poised to become a primary amplifier of false election conspiracies pushed by our enemies.”

Two sources familiar with Honey’s hiring at DHS said she began working for the agency last week. An organizational chart dated Aug. 18 on the department’s website identifies her as a leader in the agency’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans. Her position wasn’t on a version of the website archived in July, and officials in former administrations said that there’s been no such job previously.

It’s not clear yet what Honey will oversee, but former DHS officials said that deputy assistant secretaries are typically the agency’s top experts in their subject areas. They’re often involved in drafting executive orders and crafting policies. They also serve as liaisons to the White House and the National Security Council.

Since Honey started, Trump has announced “a movement to get rid of” mail-in ballots and voting machines via executive order, though a top aide subsequently said the administration would pursue those goals through legislative action. DHS has also threatened to cut off about $28 million in grants to help states prepare for terrorism and disasters if they don’t change voting rules to conform to the administration’s priorities, NPR has reported.

Honey’s duties likely would include helping to organize the government’s policy responses if foreign actors make intrusions into the nation’s election systems, former officials said. To do this, and to assess the security of election infrastructure, someone in her position would typically have access to classified information, including the government’s election-related intelligence.

Experts expressed concern about Honey’s portfolio, given her history of spreading misinformation.

“Heather Honey’s past misleading claims about vote counts in Pennsylvania, among other things, have helped fuel false conspiracy theories about stolen elections,” said Larry Norden, an election expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, a nonpartisan law and policy group.

Before becoming swept up in the “Stop the Steal” movement, Honey had no experience in the federal government or as an election administrator, working as a Pennsylvania-based private investigator.

Amid Rise of RFK Jr., Officials Waver on Drinking Water Fluoridation — Even in the State Where It Started](https://www.propublica.org/article/fluoride-drinking-water-rfk-jr-michigan-cdc-hhs)

After the 2020 election, she became a contractor for a Republican-backed audit seeking proof of fraud in ballots cast in Maricopa County, Arizona. According to emails between employees working on the review, which ended up reaffirming Biden’s win, Honey helped draft the final report.

Since then, Honey has led at least three organizations devoted to transforming election systems in ways championed by conservatives, such as tightening eligibility requirements for people to be on voter rolls. Members of Honey’s Pennsylvania Fair Elections, a state chapter of Mitchell’s nationwide Election Integrity Network, have challenged the eligibility of thousands of residents to be on voter rolls.

Honey has also been involved in numerous other efforts to transform elections around the country, including a successful push to get many states with Republican leadership to pull out of a bipartisan interstate partnership to share data to make voting more secure.

Do you have information you can share about Heather Honey or elections work being done in the federal government, especially at the Department of Homeland Security? Contact reporter Doug Bock Clark at doug.clark@propublica.org or on Signal at 678-243-0784. If you’re concerned about confidentiality, check out our advice on the most secure ways to share tips.

===

OMFG // BONDI LIFT SANCTIONS USSR DAY ONE?!

A prominent Republican congressman, the former House Intelligence Committee chair, appeared shocked on national television when he learned that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered a top Pentagon agency, U.S. Cyber Command, to suspend operations and planning against Russia’s cyber offensives.

Secretary Hegseth’s “stand down” order, while allegedly temporary, is expected to “last for the foreseeable future,” according to The Record, a cybersecurity news site which first reported the news.

CNN reported that a senior U.S. official called Hegseth’s order “a major blow.”

According to the network, “planning for such operations takes time and research to carry out. The concern, the official said, is that the pause on offensive cyber operations against Russia will make the U.S. more vulnerable to potential cyberattacks from Moscow, which has a formidable cadre of hackers capable of disrupting U.S. critical infrastructure and collecting sensitive intelligence.”

READ MORE: World Leaders Rush to Support Zelenskyy as Americans Debate Trump’s Allegiance

The development has received widespread coverage over the weekend.

“Russia is not a significant cyber threat to the U.S. anymore, Trump’s new Defense Secretary says,” the science and technology website Gizmodo reported. “The policy shift represents a complete 180-degree turn from America’s posture over the past decade, which has consistently considered Russia one of the top cybersecurity threats. Credible reporting and government investigations have shown that Russia has hacked into U.S. systems countless times.”

Experts were also stunned.

Veteran cyber expert James Lewis, formerly of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said “it’s delusional to think” the stand down order “will turn Russia and the FSB [the Russian security agency] into our friends,” The Guardian reported. “They hate the U.S. and are still mad about losing the cold war. Pretending otherwise won’t change this.”

The order appears to extend past the Department of Defense, suggesting it may have originated at the highest levels of the executive branch.

Analysts at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) received a new priorities directive that included China, but not Russia, The Guardian also reported. One source “said analysts at the agency were verbally informed that they were not to follow or report on Russian threats, even though this had previously been a main focus for the agency.”

“Russia and China are our biggest adversaries,” that source said. “With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cybersecurity personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected and our adversaries know this.”

READ MORE: ‘What the Hell Is This?’: GOP Group’s Andrew Tate Invitation Draws Bipartisan Outrage

“People are saying Russia is winning,” they added. “Putin is on the inside now.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) has decades of defense experience in Congress, having served on several committees on the armed forces and veterans affairs, and as Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence until January—when Speaker Mike Johnson unexpectedly removed him from that critical position. He is a strong supporter of Ukraine and opposes Russia.

At the time of his removal, The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol remarked, “If you’re going to sell out Ukraine to Putin, makes sense to get Turner out of the way first.”

Last year, Turner was also one of a few House Republicans who “were warning about how elements of their party had been infected by Russian propaganda,” The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted on Monday. (Video of Turner from last year here.) Turner, he added, “was removed 7 months later as chair of the House intel committee.”

In February 2024, Turner issued a “national security threat” warning on Russia’s activities in space so dire that President Biden’s National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby was forced to deliver a statement from the White House press briefing room.

On Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” CBS News’ Margaret Brennan told Congressman Turner (video below), that “CBS has confirmed these reports that Defense Secretary Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to temporarily halt cyber operations and planning against Russia. The Washington Post reports that that’s as long as the negotiations continue. There are no negotiations under way. Does this concern you? Have you been briefed on this?”

A stunned and stammering Rep. Turner delivered his response.

“I can’t – I don’t – no, I’m not – unaware of that. And I don’t believe that that would be – there are too many, I’m certain, considerations there for that to be an accurate statement, so blanket,” he said, according to the official CBS transcript.

“But they have ordered Cyber Command to halt cyber operations,” Brennan reiterated.

“Considering what I know that – that – considering what I know what – what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that would, I’m certain, not be an accurate statement of the current status of the United States’ operations,” Turner insisted, despite multiple news reports confirming the stand down order.

“I’m confident, considering what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that the United States, the status against Russia would not be that, considering what we are facing from Russia operations,” Turner added.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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brennan ctr has series on 2025

Few things are more important to our democracy than protecting election infrastructure from attack. U.S. elections have been targeted by foreign cyberattacks, and the scope and sophistication have grown aggressively in the past decade. In 2018, President Trump signed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Act, creating an agency under the Department of Homeland Security to lead the national effort to understand, manage, and reduce risks for critical infrastructure, including election infrastructure.

CISA does not run elections, and its relationships with election officials around the country are voluntary — they can use services they find helpful and ignore those they don’t. Since 2018, the agency has played a critical role in building a more resilient election system. Election officials of all political stripes have expressed gratitude for CISA’s support in navigating ever-evolving security threats, adopted the agency’s recommendations, and sought out assessments and services. This partnership is a significant reason why elections are far more secure today than a decade ago.

CISA has received widespread bipartisan praise and support for its work to protect critical infrastructure. But in the aftermath of the 2020 election, then-President Trump fired the agency director he appointed, Christopher Krebs, for promoting accurate information and declaring that the 2020 election was secure.

Project 2025 builds on these actions and uses them to justify disrupting the entire agency’s vital work. Despite growing threats to elections and other critical infrastructure, Project 2025 suggests gutting CISA, splitting up its core responsibilities, and moving what’s left of its critical infrastructure functions to the Department of Transportation — a department with limited security expertise in this area. If implemented, the agenda would make election infrastructure more vulnerable at a time when advances in artificial intelligence, rising global tensions, and other factors are increasing the risk of cyber and physical threats.

Project 2025 makes four recommendations for CISA that would drastically reduce its ability to safeguard American elections.

First, it recommends significantly limiting CISA’s role in supporting election security, suggesting that “CISA should help states and localities assess whether they have good cyber hygiene in their hardware and software in preparation for an election — but nothing more.”

Second, it states that “CISA should not be significantly involved closer to an election.”

Third, it stipulates that “CISA should refrain from duplicating cybersecurity functions done elsewhere at the Department of Defense, FBI, National Security Agency, and U.S. Secret Service.”

Finally, it calls for CISA to end “counter-mis/disinformation efforts.”

These proposals reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of election security threats and CISA’s role and value in safeguarding election infrastructure. If implemented, they would severely undermine the progress the United States has made in the last decade to protect its election infrastructure from attack.

Restricting CISA’s role to assessing “cyber hygiene” would significantly roll back valuable services and support that election officials rely on to keep elections safe and secure.

CISA’s primary methods for supporting election infrastructure fall into three categories: information sharing to promote communication and coordination on threats across the federal, state, and local levels; no-cost training in which security experts recommend best practices and run exercises on the evolving threat landscape; and no-cost, voluntary services including security assessments, incident management assistance, and scanning of election systems for vulnerabilities.

Limiting CISA’s role to “nothing more” than assessing the cyber hygiene of hardware and software would take away the agency’s information-sharing and training support altogether, and it would cut a wide range of no-cost, voluntary services that election officials rely on to protect election infrastructure. For example, through the agency’s “Last Mile” initiative, CISA has developed more than 380 customized incident-response products for more than 2,000 election jurisdictions across the country. These products recognize that, even if election technology has good cyber hygiene, bad actors can still exploit vulnerabilities; election officials need support in hardening election infrastructure, but also responding effectively if attackers nonetheless get through the first line of defense. Limiting CISA’s work to mere assessment would also eliminate critical cybersecurity services that the agency proactively develops or funds for state and local officials’ use, including endpoint security and malicious domain blocking services.

Equally concerning, Project 2025 takes far too narrow a view of CISA’s security expertise. The agency does more than help state and local governments with cybersecurity — it also helps protect critical infrastructure from physical attacks. This expertise has become increasingly important as election workers face a rising risk of threats, intimidation, and political violence. Over the past four years, CISA’s Protective Security Advisors have conducted physical security assessments for election officials across the country, helping them identify risks and implement mitigations to keep election workers and voters safe.

The vast majority of election offices simply do not have the resources or capability to be effective frontline national security figures as they now must be. These offices often have little or no dedicated security expertise and are often dependent on other offices in their county for IT support. Nearly half of election offices operate with one or fewer full-time employees, and nearly a third operate with no full-time staff at all. CISA’s expertise and support are needed to fill this gap.

CISA becomes more critical closer to an election. Forcing it to step back would lead to more vulnerabilities and hinder the response to security threats.

To state the obvious, an adversary looking to disrupt U.S. elections is most likely to attack immediately before, during, or after an election. The period when voters are casting ballots and election officials are counting them is when state and local election officials most need CISA’s expertise and support.

As mentioned above, a critical service that CISA offers is continuous monitoring of election systems to detect vulnerabilities. This monitoring is most beneficial during the election period, when risks are highest and security breaches would be most damaging.

If security threats arise during an election, CISA’s communication structures are needed to share critical information with state and local election officials. Moreover, election officials may need to implement new security precautions in response to those threats, and CISA’s support would be needed to guide fast and effective mitigation efforts. Again, many election offices simply do not have the capacity to address these matters on their own, especially with their limited staff dedicated to overseeing election operations.

Forcing CISA to take a step back when its services are most valued would push many election officials into the dark and severely hamper states’ collective ability to respond to national security threats.

CISA plays a proactive and singular role in safeguarding election infrastructure that no other agency would be equipped to fill.

Project 2025 misunderstands CISA’s role in protecting critical infrastructure. The agency’s responsibilities are fundamentally different from the duties of the Department of Defense, FBI, National Security Agency, and U.S. Secret Service. These other departments and agencies may also track security threats, but CISA goes beyond that, using its security expertise to help state and local jurisdictions prevent, detect, and effectively respond to infrastructure vulnerabilities. CISA’s purpose is to make this infrastructure more resilient to security risks.

While federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the Secret Service also work on security breaches, their primary role in response is to investigate and eventually build a case to prosecute, not to help victims recover and increase their resilience to future attacks.

CISA’s limited role in providing accurate information on electoral processes has been mispresented for political reasons.

Finally, Project 2025 targets — and misrepresents — CISA’s role in promoting accurate information on electoral processes, such as how, when, and where to vote. CISA’s relatively limited work here has focused on two efforts. First, CISA has managed an “Election Security Rumor vs. Reality” webpage that shares accurate information on electoral processes. Second, CISA has forwarded third-party reports of false election information to social media platforms. While both efforts are important for promoting accurate election information, they represent a very small component of CISA’s election security work compared to the outsize political attention paid to these efforts.

Importantly, CISA never asked social media companies to do anything with the posts. It simply flagged them for the companies’ awareness, something the Supreme Court noted when it recently dismissed a lawsuit targeting CISA’s role in forwarding false information about the electoral process for social media platforms. The Court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked a legal right to bring the case in the first place, but its opinion also rejected findings that CISA was censoring information or coercing social media platforms into moderating certain election information.

As an election security expert, CISA has a proper and valuable responsibility to boost accurate electoral process information. The agency has deep expertise about election systems and the steps election officials can take to secure these systems, as well as an interest in ensuring voters have access to accurate information about election processes and systems. Media and social media platforms are often ill-equipped to sift through and curate election information; they rely on the expertise of subject-matter experts like CISA. And election officials value this work. In a 2023 Brennan Center survey, 85 percent of local election officials said it is very or somewhat beneficial for CISA to dispel false information about the electoral process by promoting accurate information on election administration and technology.

By limiting the services CISA provides local jurisdictions and forcing the agency to step back from election security in the weeks before an election, Project 2025’s plan for the agency would leave election workers and voters more vulnerable to physical threats and violence and simultaneously make it far more difficult for election officials to secure our election infrastructure and recover from attacks when they happen.

As advances in AI threaten to make cyberattacks more damaging and easier for adversaries to launch, Project 2025 would restrain the federal agency best positioned to prevent these attacks, jeopardizing not just election security but all critical infrastructure that our economy and democracy depend on.

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no lnx

Aug 19, 2024

Project 2025 Will Undermine America’s National Security

The far-right policy proposals in Project 2025 will fundamentally undermine the national and economic security of the United States, benefiting its adversaries and making all Americans less safe.

Authors

Alan Yu

Allison McManus

Dan Herman

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Senior Director, Media Relations

shananel@americanprogress.org

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Doug Molof

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Part of a Series

Project 2025: Exposing the Far-Right Assault on America

This article is part of a series from the Center for American Progress exposing how the sweeping Project 2025 policy agenda would harm all Americans. This new authoritarian playbook, published by the Heritage Foundation, would destroy the 250-year-old system of checks and balances upon which U.S. democracy has relied and give far-right politicians, judges, and corporations more control over Americans’ lives.

In a nearly 1,000-page proposal, a group of far-right former officials and experts have authored a policy agenda, dubbed “Project 2025,” for a future right-wing presidency. The plan, which would gut America’s 250-year-old system of checks and balances to allow far-right extremism to take over the federal government, includes a vision for the “common defense” that will place the United States in direct confrontation with its adversaries and privilege unilateral militarism over a thoughtful, holistic, and adequately resourced national security strategy. In so doing, Project 2025’s proposals would fundamentally undermine America’s national and economic security, and ordinary Americans will pay the price.

The far-right project seeks to “reorient the U.S. government’s posture toward friends and adversaries alike … represent[ing] the most significant shift in core foreign policy principles and corresponding action since the end of the Cold War.” This reorientation makes all Americans less safe.

Gutting agencies protecting Americans against foreign threats

:{Project 2025 advocates for staffing the National Security Council and Situation Room with individuals whose primary qualification is political fealty, putting the country in a tremendously vulnerable position. Its proposals would replace nonpartisan career national security officials with partisan operatives, placing a future president immediately on the back foot in responding to world events and leading to confusion and mistrust worldwide. On Inauguration Day, Project 2025 recommends reassigning “nonessential” National Security Council staff to their home agencies, including military officers, intelligence analysts, and diplomats, leaving the White House unprepared to fully engage the U.S. departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Justice, as well as the Intelligence Community.

Similarly, Project 2025 recommends recalling career foreign service ambassadors serving in the nation’s most consequential postings if they have not demonstrated significant loyalty to the incoming president. The lack of experience or knowledge many of those political ambassador appointees bring, as well as the embarrassing and, at times, costly consequences that result—already makes the United States an outlier in the developed world. Further entrenching this practice would be a significant blow to international relations.}:

Perhaps worse, Project 2025 would politicize the military chain of command and U.S. intelligence agencies. It recommends the White House review all senior military general officer and flag officer promotions to ensure they align with domestic political priorities, and to replace career intelligence officers at the Central Intelligence Agency with new hires more committed to the president’s agenda.

Project 2025 would also directly undermine the safety of ordinary Americans and the security of the country’s democratic system. Rather than seek to reform and improve federal agencies, Project 2025 recommends that the next administration eliminate the Department of Homeland Security and many of its component offices; eliminate and privatize the Transportation Security Administration; and eliminate the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) (CISA) Cybersecurity Advisory Committee and limit CISA’s ability to support states on election security. Eliminating these agencies would put security of air travel, ports, and rails at risk and would prevent CISA from helping state and local governments and private companies defend against attacks from foreign adversaries.

Benefiting America’s adversaries

Project 2025 advocates for “transforming” NATO by handing over lead responsibility to deter Russia’s authoritarian aggression to European allies and pulling back U.S. forces—and effectively U.S. political commitment—from Europe. This proposition would endanger American security and prosperity and signal to allies and adversaries around the world that the United States is at best inconsistent, and at worst unreliable. America’s alliances have been singularly important in deterring aggression. Were deterrence to fail, the United States would need the help of allies to prosecute any future great power war with its adversaries, whether China or Russia. But alliances require trust, durability, and respect. Although the United States should continue to encourage greater self-reliance among NATO members, the U.S. and its allies should carefully coordinate any future reorientation to prevent a weakening of NATO’s collective defense, lest it encourage further Russian aggression.

On Iran, Project 2025 advocates a markedly more confrontational stance, denigrating diplomacy and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in favor of barely veiled advocacy for regime change. The document outlines a new security architecture in the Middle East that builds on the Abraham Accords but undermines those efforts by deliberately making no mention of the Palestinian people and promising to defund the Palestinian Authority—a sabotage of any hopes for a Palestinian state. As the past year has tragically demonstrated, continued neglect of the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only benefit Iranian proxy recruitment efforts and risk continued violence, including attacks on American troops and installations.

Placing the United States in direct confrontation with China

While China will be the United States’ most consequential competitor for the foreseeable future, Project 2025’s policy prescriptions would exacerbate current conflicts and create new ones. The strategy outlined in Project 2025 would be profoundly expensive, financially and diplomatically. It would set back support and cooperation from regional allies, perversely encourage rather than deter military conflict, and create insecurity and instability across the globe.

Project 2025 has a myopic, militarization-first view of the U.S. security strategy toward China—ramping up funding for all four branches of U.S. conventional forces even as the Pentagon has repeatedly failed to pass audits of money already appropriated; spending heavily to field newer, more destabilizing kinds of nuclear weapons and rejecting arms control engagement; creating new mandates for offensive cyber operations; and instructing the U.S. Space Force to impose America’s will to dominate the space domain. Project 2025 even dangerously calls on U.S. special operations forces to depart from its counterterrorism mandate to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure investment projects.

The authors of Project 2025 are right that competing with China will require resources, but—somewhat surprisingly, given the painful and recent memory of the costs of the conservative preference for military intervention (and spending)—Project 2025 places little value in the civilian side of the U.S. security strategy equation. Competing successfully with China will require diplomatic funding and vision; new development and finance tools designed to advance U.S. political and economic interests in a new kind of geopolitical competition; and investments in industrial, technology, and workforce development to bolster national strength and competitiveness. Project 2025 is dismissive of these ideas, doubling down instead on the mindset that had U.S. Marines dodging IEDs in Marjah while Chinese engineers made advances in quantum computing.

Project 2025 will benefit America’s adversaries

North Korea: With fanatical commitment to expanding the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, Project 2025 effectively incentivizes North Korea to expand its own nuclear weapons program.

Iran: With the Iranian nuclear program revived by the scuttling of the JCPOA, Project 2025 would now boost Tehran’s recruitment efforts in the region by deliberately sabotaging any hopes for Palestinian statehood.

Russia: Turning away from decades-old alliances such as NATO, Project 2025 will weaken collective defense and embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin’s imperial designs.

China: Project 2025’s ham-handed demand that countries choose between China or the United States will push many to the well-resourced competitor, and its call for the United States to withdraw from multilateral bodies would surrender the field to China to expand and exert its influence.

Increasing the risk of nuclear war

At a time when the doomsday clock is already set closer to midnight than ever before due to “widespread and growing reliance on nuclear weapons,” Project 2025’s solution is to ramp up the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The United States and the Russian Federation have not been in a more precarious nuclear posture since the end of the Cold War. The lapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 and the uncertain future of the New START Treaty, which is set to expire in 2026, further exacerbate tensions and raise concerns about a renewed arms race. In the Middle East, Iran is potentially days away from nuclear weapons capabilities after aggressively stockpiling uranium following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the JCPOA. In East Asia, China has rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal and advanced its missile technology, aiming to reach parity with the United States by the mid-2030s. North Korea has continued to enhance its own nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, conducting frequent tests and increasing the range and precision of its systems.

Despite these risks, the playbook describes an aggressive expansion of the nuclear weapons programs as a top defense priority. There is scant mention of strategic arms control, and when it is mentioned—six times in the body text—it is done so derisively. Though framed as “deterrence,” this posture increases the risk of nuclear war. G7 leaders committed in Hiroshima, Japan, last year to pursue nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, a pledge to which they recommitted at this year’s summit in Apulia, Italy. The Project 2025 agenda would turn back on those commitments, not only elevating the risk of nuclear conflict, but also putting the United States at odds with its strategic allies, who would be critical partners in case of conflict.

Failing to address climate security threats

Project 2025 calls for a “whole-of-government unwinding” of climate policy that would cause greater harm to U.S. national security. The proposal not only calls for a repeat of then-President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, it would go one step further and pull the United States out of its parent treaty—the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—entirely, which would make the United States the only government outside the UNFCCC and take the country completely out of the global rules and standards setting on climate action. Project 2025 also calls for the United States to withdraw all support for international climate finance, kneecapping vital climate finance institutions, chiefly the World Bank. These recommendations would amount to an abdication of global climate leadership during a critical decade for world action to stay within the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature rise limit to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

These actions would endanger U.S. national security. For one, climate change directly affects U.S. defense assets and installations worldwide, preparedness, and ultimately the defense budget. Rising tides, extreme weather patterns, and hotter temperatures all affect U.S. military bases, equipment, and personnel. The negative effects of climate change also bring massive financial costs; these climate damages strain federal, state, and local budgets, weakening the United States’ economic security. Climate change also contributes to conflict and instability worldwide, making it more difficult for the United States to respond and protect its interests and those of its partners. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has assessed that climate change will exacerbate geopolitical tensions through 2040, increasing the risk of internal or external conflict, particularly in countries least equipped to grapple with climate change. Perhaps most consequentially, dismantling climate policy would jeopardize not only U.S. national security but our very existence on Earth.

Damaging the United States’ ability to address global threats

Project 2025 contains policy proposals that impair the United States’—and the world’s—capacity to counter global threats such as pandemics, water, and food insecurity head on. The Biden administration has prioritized a science-based global health strategy, increasing bilateral partnerships and building global health capacity worldwide. Project 2025 would halt these efforts, promoting a unilateral approach that neglects global health needs. Project 2025’s authors argue that the United States should withdraw from the World Health Organization, citing failures during the COVID-19 pandemic and the promotion of “radical social policies.” However, leaving the room would remove U.S. leadership and influence on a potential pandemic accord. In addition, Project 2025 would roll back funding for critical global health programs under the guise of protecting families and children, defying global trends. By politicizing support for proven global health programs, Project 2025 makes Americans more vulnerable to shocks from health and humanitarian crises—key factors that also drive conflict and migration.

See also

Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Global Climate Action

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry arrives on stage to deliver a speech.

Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Global Climate Action

Aug 19, 2024

Courtney Federico, Frances Colón, Mike Williams,

Conclusion

While the authors of Project 2025 claim that defending the nation is among the playbook’s top priorities, the policies it proposes would fundamentally undermine the U.S. government’s ability to do so—all while increasing the risk of conflict, instability, and crisis. Instead, the United States can achieve more durable security at home and abroad by prioritizing alliances, values, and global leadership.

The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. American Progress would like to acknowledge the many generous supporters who make our work possible.

Authors

Alan Yu

Former Senior Vice President, National Security and International Policy

Allison McManus

Managing Director, National Security and International Policy

Dan Herman

Senior Director, Democratic Accountability

Courtney Federico

Associate Director, International Climate

Camille Meshack

National Security and International Policy Intern

Department

National Security and International Policy

Advancing progressive national security policies that are grounded in respect for democratic values: accountability, rule of law, and human rights.

Explore The Series

Project 2025: Exposing the Far-Right Assault on America

Project 2025: Exposing the Far-Right Assault on America

The far right’s new authoritarian playbook could usher in a sweeping array of dangerous policies.

Previous

Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Global Climate Action

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry arrives on stage to deliver a speech.

Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Global Climate Action

Next

Project 2025’s Plan To Gut Checks and Balances Harms Parents

A parent and child are seen hugging outside of a school with other students waiting in the background.

Project 2025’s Plan To Gut Checks and Balances Harms Parents

---

ggl 10 25

[### FY2025-2026 CISA International Strategic Plan

CISA (.gov)

https://www.cisa.gov › 2025-2026-cisa-international-str...](https://www.cisa.gov/2025-2026-cisa-international-strategic-plan)

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is a globally recognized leader in shaping and implementing proactive approaches to reduce risk and ...

[### Cybersecurity 2025 Legislation

National Conference of State Legislatures

https://www.ncsl.org › technology-and-communication](https://www.ncsl.org/technology-and-communication/cybersecurity-2025-legislation)

This page summarizes state cybersecurity legislation from the 2025 legislative session.

[### Project 2025's Plan for Cybersecurity Agency Threatens ...

Brennan Center for Justice

https://www.brennancenter.org › research-reports › proj...](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/project-2025s-plan-cybersecurity-agency-threatens-election-security)

Aug 1, 2024 — Gutting the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will leave our democracy more vulnerable to ...

[### July 2025 Cybersecurity Developments Under the Trump ...

Global Policy Watch

https://www.globalpolicywatch.com › 2025/08 › july-2...](https://www.globalpolicywatch.com/2025/08/july-2025-cybersecurity-developments-under-the-trump-administration/)

Aug 22, 2025 — This is the sixth blog in a series of Covington blogs on cybersecurity policies, executive orders (“EOs”), and other actions of the Trump.

[### Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation's ...

Federal Register (.gov)

https://www.federalregister.gov › 2025-01470 › strengt...](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/17/2025-01470/strengthening-and-promoting-innovation-in-the-nations-cybersecurity)

Jan 17, 2025 — In some instances, providers of software to the Federal Government commit to following cybersecurity practices, yet do not fix well-known ...

[### Executive Order on Strengthening and Promoting ...

National Archives (.gov)

https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov › 2025/01/16 › ex...](https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2025/01/16/executive-order-on-strengthening-and-promoting-innovation-in-the-nations-cybersecurity/)

Jan 16, 2025 — (a) The Federal Government and our Nation's critical infrastructure rely on software providers. Yet insecure software remains a challenge for ...

[### Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025

World Economic Forum

https://reports.weforum.org › docs › WEF_Glob...](https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Cybersecurity_Outlook_2025.pdf)

PDF

Jan 10, 2025 — Disclaimer. This document is published by the. World Economic Forum as a contribution to a project, insight area or interaction.

49 pages

[### “CISA 2025: The State of American Cybersecurity from ...

Congress.gov

https://www.congress.gov › event › house-event › text](https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-congress/house-event/115820/text)

The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony from Jen Easterly, director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA.

[### Cybersecurity Forecast 2025 report

Google Cloud

https://cloud.google.com › security › resources › cyberse...](https://cloud.google.com/security/resources/cybersecurity-forecast)

The threat landscape is constantly evolving. AI-powered attacks, geopolitical tensions, and sophisticated cyber crime attacks are just a few of the ...

[### Project 2025 Will Undermine America's National Security

Center for American Progress

https://www.americanprogress.org › article › project-20...](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-will-undermine-americas-national-security/)

Aug 19, 2024 — The far-right policy proposals in Project 2025 will fundamentally undermine the national and economic security of the United States.

---

li

bridget-bean

[Michael DuffyMichael Duffy · 3rdThird degree connection

Federal CISO (Acting), Office of Management and Budge](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-duffy-a25030158?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_miniProfile%3AACoAACW8OL0BuE-hdavEiUkGD8IrapvKjLTBMso)

DEI RECRUIT? Established in 1985, Kearney & Company is the largest Certified Public Accounting (CPA) firm in the country exclusively focused on the government.

OFF BS

Bridget Bean, Assistant Director for the Integrated Operations Division (IOD) at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Bridget Bean Bio:

Bridget Bean is the Assistant Director for the Integrated Operations Division (IOD) at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). As the Assistant Director for Integrated Operations, she leads the agency’s efforts around coordinating, collaborating, and executing CISA’s operational activities to ensure seamless support and expedited responses to critical needs.

Under her leadership, IOD ensures CISA’s frontline, externally facing activities are coordinated, collaborative, and communicative across CISA allowing seamless support and expedited response to critical needs as well as delivering the full array of CISA’s services across the Nation. IOD enhances mission effectiveness, information sharing, and situational awareness by unifying the conduct and reporting of operations through a single report channel to provide leadership end-to-end operational visibility for physical, cyber, and communications activities. Additionally, IOD provides CISA-specific and incident-specific intelligence context and products to support all missions and conducts continuity planning and internal drills needed to track and improve the overall operational readiness throughout the enterprise.

Before joining CISA, Ms. Bean was an independent consultant helping state, local, tribal and territorial governments, as well as small businesses and nonprofits, solve complex problems.

Bridget previously served as a Senior Executive at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) with extensive operational assignments in National Preparedness, Human Capital, and Economic Development.

As FEMA’s Acting Deputy Administrator for Resilience, the agency’s third ranking official, Bridget led a team of 1,600 employees and directed an annual budget of $600 million. Prior to that role, she led FEMA’s Grants Program Directorate, where she oversaw the strategic alignment of $20 billion in Homeland Security grants with emerging, multi-faceted threats, as well as the $600 million Grants Management Modernization effort.

During her tenure with the SBA, Bridget served in several roles including Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Chief Human Capital Officer, and Washington Metropolitan District Director.

Bridget is a graduate of George Mason University. She is an active member within her community, serving on the board of GovCon Leadership Advisory Council, a member of Executive Women in Government and is a volunteer with Fairfax County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) team

---

AN 2 25

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has suspended all its election security work and is conducting a comprehensive review of its activities in this area over the past eight years, according to an internal memo review by Wired.

This action is seen as the first major instance of the agency aligning with President Donald Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud and online censorship.

CISA's acting director, Bridget Bean, has ordered "a review and assessment" of all election security-related positions and activities since 2017, when election systems were designated as critical infrastructure. Bean stated, "CISA will pause all elections security activities until the completion of this review," and the agency is also halting funding for related activities at the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center.

The review, set to conclude on March 6, is being justified under the rubric of Trump's January 20 executive order on "ending federal censorship."

According to Wired, Bean's memo indicates that the review will cover all aspects of CISA's election security work, including employee performance plans, support services, and guidance. The agency will report to the White House on how it plans to "deliver a more focused provision of services for elections security activities," with goals including streamlining services and aligning with its "mandate to refocus" on core missions.

This shift in CISA's operations reflects the growing conservative criticism of the agency's work [PDF] on misinformation and disinformation, with some Republicans labeling it as "the nerve center of the federal government's domestic surveillance and censorship operations on social media." The move has raised concerns about the future of election security efforts and the potential impact on the integrity of future elections.

NOW READ:How Jeff Bezos' Washington Post is providing cover for Trump — and Musk

REF JUN 2023

cisa-staff-report6-26-23

37 PP NO STAFFER OR MOC NAME ON IT

CRUZ TWT WHY ONLY BLUE STATES TAKE SO LONG TO CT WHEN GOP DOES IT ON ELECTION NIGHT

MAIL IN BALLOT BS

HUNTER LAPTOP

...

CISA’s Cybersecurity Advisory Committee (CSAC) DHS created the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee (CSAC) in June 2021 “to advance CISA’s cybersecurity mission and strengthen the cybersecurity of the United States.”33 CSAC in turn established a “Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation & Disinformation” Subcommittee,34 commonly known as the “MDM Subcommittee.”35 The MDM Subcommittee, which has since disbanded,36 brought together government, Big Tech, and academic misinformation “experts,” including: • Dr. Kate Starbird, Associate Professor and Co-Founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP).37 CIP was a member of both the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP)38 and the Virality Project (VP).39 Starbird served as the Chair of the MDM Subcommittee. 40 • Vijaya Gadde, the former Chief Legal Officer of Twitter, who was “involved in censoring [the New York] Post’s Hunter Biden laptop” story.41 Gadde was also “behind the decision to permanently ban former President Trump from Twitter.”42 Shortly after Elon Musk completed his purchase of Twitter, Gadde was fired from the company in October 2022.43 • Suzanne Spaulding, a former assistant general counsel and legal adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who also served as the Under Secretary for the NPPD

CISA’s predecessor within DHS.44 Spaulding is now the “director of the Defending Democratic Institutions project at the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS).”45 MDM Subcommittee meetings also featured government participants, including Geoff Hale, who leads CISA’s “Election Security Initiative,”46 and Kim Wyman, the former Washington Secretary of State, who now serves as CISA’s Senior Election Security Advisor.47

...

CONCL

“Silencing those who disagree with us is a sign of weakness, not strength, and it won’t lead to progress.” – former President Barack Obama, April 6, 2023.161

In 2019, CISA’s Chief Counsel claimed: “We are not law enforcement and we’re not the intelligence community.”162 In theory, the statement is accurate. CISA is not a law enforcement agency and is not authorized to act as an intelligence agency. But, in practice, that is how CISA has behaved, arrogating to itself the authority to conduct surveillance of Americans on social media. CISA expanded its unconstitutional practice by developing an elaborate social media censorship apparatus spanning multiple organizations, in order to facilitate the censorship of Americans’ political speech both directly and by proxy. There is no constitutionally viable legal authority that allows CISA to engage in this or any other kind of censorship. Thus, not only does CISA’s conduct violate the First Amendment, it also disregards the basic principle of the separation of powers, which prohibits agencies from acting outside of their congressionally delegated sphere.163

As Suzanne Spaulding, the former CIA legal advisor and MDM Subcommittee member, presaged, it was “only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about”164 CISA’s repeated violations of the First Amendment. CISA’s attempts to cover up its surveillance and censorship operations will not rectify the damage inflicted on the American people by government-induced censorship. Neither CISA’s scrubbing of its website, nor the Biden Administration’s stalling of records requests can conceal the true nature of CISA’s work in “combating MDM.” CISA must be reined in, as must the Biden Administration’s “whole-of-government” approach to social media censorship. Every American has the right to express his or her opinion online, and to receive information from others.

Government classifications of opinions as “misinformation” or “disinformation” do not nullify the First Amendment’s guarantees. A free and democratic society is impossible under a government that acts as the ultimate arbiter of truth in political discourse. To better inform legislative efforts to end government censorship on the Internet and protect Americans’ rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, the Committee and Select Subcommittee will continue to investigate the extent of CISA’s and other Executive Branch agencies’ interactions with social media platforms

---

AN 2 25

Secretaries of state and election officials from across the nation gathered at separate conferences this past week in Washington, where the new administration has been moving quickly to slash the federal workforce and dismantle certain agencies.

*This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

One pressing question at the gatherings of the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors was how the shift in power will affect collaborations with federal agencies that help safeguard elections, including the FBI, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

So far, it’s hard to tell.

Commissioners and staff members from the EAC — a small agency that serves as a clearinghouse for best practices, federal grants, and data, and assesses whether voting machines meet federal standards — were visible at both conferences, and said their work continues.

A representative of the FBI’s cybersecurity division appeared at NASS, where she spoke on a panel about cybersecurity threats. An FBI representative who was expected to join a panel at NASED didn’t show.

The most glaring absence was CISA, whose reserved table at the NASED conference remained empty.

“CISA was telling us that in light of the new administration, they were reevaluating their conference attendance,” said Amy Cohen, executive director for NASED.

CISA was created in 2018, the year after federal officials designated elections as critical infrastructure. Since then, the agency has been an important partner for election officials, providing security assessments, training, and resources aimed at “protect(ing) America’s election infrastructure against new and evolving threats.”

But the agency angered President Donald Trump after it declared the November 2020 election “the most secure in American history,” disputing the false claims by Trump and his allies that fraud cost him victory. Trump responded by firing Chris Krebs, the agency’s first director, before he left office in 2021.

More recently, CISA has drawn the ire of Kristi Noem, Trump’s pick to run the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the cybersecurity agency. During her Senate confirmation hearing in January, she called for shrinking the agency.

Election officials noticed the agency’s absence.

“I note the incongruity with the fact that many of you, maybe all of you, mentioned cybersecurity … and the empty table out front that says CISA on it," Judd Choate, elections director for Colorado, told a panel of congressional staffers, an absence that he said he could “only interpret as: They were told not to attend.”

A CISA spokesperson told Votebeat that because of funding uncertainties — Congress passed a short-term funding bill that expires in March — the agency is “reevaluating all conferences and engagements until a resolution.” The agency did not say whether it had been directed not to send representatives to the conferences, or whether it would continue providing services to election officials.

Kim Wyman, a former senior election security adviser at CISA who was secretary of state for Washington during the 2020 election, said she was “certainly concerned” about the agency’s absence, but she’s trying not to read too much into it.

Wyman said CISA was a useful resource for her as secretary of state when she needed physical and cyber security assessments for local elections offices that would help them determine where improvements could be made.

“Having that direct connection to CISA gave, particularly our local counties, a lot of powerful resources to secure their systems,” she said.

Wyman, now a senior fellow on elections at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said there have been some recent “bright spots” in the federal government’s relationship with election officials, pointing specifically to the continuation of theElections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center andMulti-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, both of which are funded by CISA.

“That for me was a big positive indication that election officials are going to have these tools available,” she said. “But I am concerned that some of the direct services, like [CISA’s] elections security advisers that are in each of the 10 regions, I hope that they continue to be able to perform those duties and stay in those roles.”

Trump hasyet to name a nominee to head CISA. The most recent director, Biden appointee Jen Easterly, departed at the end of the last administration. Last week, the Trump administration placed at least seven CISA employees who work on combating foreign disinformation within the election security arm of the agency on administrative leave, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

Cohen, the NASED director, said that cyber and physical security remains a top concern for election officials.

“It is concerning that they are not here,” she said. “I hope it is not indicative of a larger shift, but it’s hard not to take it that way.”

One federal agency, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, did signal plans to work more closely with secretaries of state on elections. Election officials, primarily from Republican states, have lobbied for more access to federal data to help them determine the citizenship status of people on the voter rolls, and in some cases have sued.

CIS maintains the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, or SAVE, which allows states a way to check an individual’s immigration status, based on a unique DHS-issued identification number.

Tammy Meckley, a CIS representative who spoke on a panel at the secretaries of state conference, said the fee her agency charges for using that service is supposed to rise to $3.10 per transaction by 2028.

Meckley said she is open to working with election officials in what she described as “a different political landscape” to find other ways to search that would produce accurate matches “with a high degree of confidence.”

*Interim Editor-in-Chief Carrie Levine contributed.

*Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter atcwalker@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

---

===

nbc 11 24

U.S. officials are reacting faster to foreign interference than in the past

Dan De Luce

Federal authorities are responding faster to attempts by Russia and other foreign governments to spread false information about the 2024 election than in past election cycles, issuing public statements within hours after fabricated posts appear on social media.

The swift reaction, including a series of statements since Friday, reflects a new strategy by law enforcement and intelligence agencies to call out foreign election interference and potentially limit its effect.

In past elections, FBI and intelligence officials were reluctant to weigh in for fear they would be accused of trying to influence the outcome of a race or reveal intelligence gathering methods.

An FBI statement early today alerting Americans that Russia appeared to be behind bomb threats emailed to polling sites in several states was the latest example of the more forward-leaning approach.

Jen Easterly, head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told NBC News last week in an interview that “the government has been more active than ever before in putting out updates about foreign adversary tactics as well as information about disruptions that have occurred.”

nbc

A senior adviser at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said that foreign adversaries’ efforts to disrupt the 2024 election are more aggressive than they have been in previous election cycles, and that Russia poses the most sophisticated threat.

“When we look at the prior election cycles, it is a greater scope and scale of foreign influence operations” compared to past elections, the adviser, Cait Connelly, told reporters in a call this afternoon. “Russia represents, in terms of our adversaries, the greatest degree of sophistication in this space that we have seen targeting our elections process.”

Connelly said CISA has seen Russia and other foreign adversaries, such as Iran and China, use different tactics to push disinformation to sow chaos and distrust, including pushing false narratives on social media and reaching out to voters through apps that target specific American demographic groups.

"Overall, I think the range of tactics we are seeing being employed and the level of sophistication is greater than prior cycles and just reflects the commitment of our adversaries to their own stated objectives in terms of undermining American democracy and bringing Americans against one another,” Connelly added

===

guk

Russian actors were behind a viral video falsely showing mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in the swing state of Pennsylvania, US officials said on Friday, amid heightened alert over foreign influence operations targeting the upcoming election.

The video, which garnered millions of views on platforms such as the Elon Musk-owned X, purports to show a man sorting through mail-in ballots from the state’s Bucks county and ripping up those cast for the former president.

On Thursday, the Bucks county board of elections declared the video “fake”, saying that the envelope and other materials depicted in the footage are “clearly not authentic materials” belonging to or distributed by them.

A joint statement Friday from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the video was part of a Russian disinformation operation.

“Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania,” the statement said.

“This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans,” it added.

The statement said Russia was expected to create and release more such content in an attempt to “undermine trust” in the integrity of the 5 November elections.

The video surfaced as American authorities brace for a surge in disinformation in the final days of a nail-biting election between Republican nominee Trump and the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.

The video, also debunked by AFP’s factcheckers, was connected to a Kremlin-aligned disinformation network known as Storm-1516, according to researchers including Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub.

Linvill, who has closely studied the network, said the account on X – previously called Twitter – that distributed the video has regularly amplified other narratives from this network.

Storm-1516 has previously produced fake videos to discredit the campaign of Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, according to disinformation researchers.

In September, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center said Russian operatives were ramping up disinformation operations to malign Harris’s campaign by disseminating conspiracy-laden videos.

Aside from Russia, Iran and China are also fanning “divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the US democratic system,” the ODNI warned in a memo earlier this week.

“Foreign influence efforts will intensify in the lead-up to election day, especially through social media posts – some of which are likely to be AI generated or enhanced,” the report said.

It added: “These actors probably perceive that undermining confidence in the elections weakens the legitimacy of our democracy and consequently makes the United States less capable of effectively pursuing policies that are counter to their interests.”

===

bbc 11 24

uS intelligence agencies say "Russian influence actors" are behind a suspected fake video of a Haitian man who claims to have voted “multiple times” in Georgia.

The 20-second video, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on X and other social networks, shows two men in a car claiming to be Haitian.

One says they obtained US citizenship within six months of arriving and have voted for Kamala Harris in Gwinnett and Fulton counties in Georgia. They encourage other Haitians to come to the United States.

The BBC has found clear indications, including false addresses and stock photos, which indicate the video is a fake.

X

A screenshot from the fake video

In a statement, three US security agencies said that the video "falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti" and was made by "Russian influence actors".

"This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans," said the joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The Russian embassy in the US said the accusations were "baseless", adding that Russia "has not and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries" in a statement on Telegram.

But researchers at Clemson University said that the video bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation operation known as Storm-1516.

“This narrative is consistent with what we’ve seen from Storm-1516, especially in recent weeks since they’ve turned their focus squarely on the US election,” said Clemson’s Darren Linvill.

“We should absolutely not be surprised that they are focused on undermining the integrity of the US election.

“This is consistent with Russian strategy over the last two election cycles."

Linvill said the "narrative focus, style and production of the video" match previous efforts by the Russian operation, which is linked, Clemson researchers say, to an organisation called the Russian Foundation to Battle Injustice.

The organisation was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary leader who headed the Wagner Group until he launched a rebellion against Moscow and died in a plane crash.

Georgia's chief elections official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said that the clip is "fake and part of a disinformation effort".

He asked X owner Elon Musk and owners of other social media platforms to remove the video.

One man in the clip shows multiple driving licences to the camera, presumably as proof of identity. BBC Verify took screenshots of these and enhanced the images to be able to read the details on them.

The addresses on two of the licences match up to a business site and a location in the middle of a road near a petrol station - not residential addresses.

A reverse image search of the photograph on one of the licences showed it was a stock image of a man originally produced by a production company in South Africa.

US intelligence agencies said last week that a video purporting to show a poll worker destroying mail-in ballots marked for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was "manufactured and amplified" by Russians.

===

===