In its crusade against federal agencies, the Trump administration is targeting our election system, making potentially dangerous reductions to protections that help keep elections free, fair, and secure. On Friday, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency sent a memo to all agency staff notifying them that “all election security activities” would be paused pending the results of an internal investigation. The memo also stated that the administration was cutting off all funds to the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center—a Department of Homeland Security–funded organization that helps state and local officials monitor, analyze, and respond to cyberattacks targeting the nation’s election hardware and software.
The work of CISA and the EI-ISAC has been central to election security in the United States for most of the past decade, providing state and local election officials with critical tools and assistance to defend against cyber and physical threats to election systems. These steps and other recent blows to federal election guardrails were foretold in Project 2025.Changes to CISA began shortly after Kristi Noem was sworn in as secretary of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency. Beyond the announced election security pause and defunding of EI-ISAC, the agency also put critical election security staff on leave and targeted them for potential termination. These staff .... were reportedly targeted because they had previously been involved with the agency’s efforts to communicate accurate information about election security to election officials and the public.
The article goes on to comment that in view of MAGA attacks on CISA’s work, the djt administration wants to permanently gut the agency’s election security role. That was a Project 2025 goal. In addition, attorney general Pam Bondi disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force. That, along with neutering the Federal Elections Commission, were other Project 2025 targets for disposal. The FBI task force was established during Trump’s first term, after Russian interference in the 2016 election, including hacked campaign emails and poisoning public opinion using social media. djt and MAGA elites have invited Russia back to participate in American elections.
The questions du jour, (i) to what extent will the 2026 mid-term elections be subverted, and (ii) how much honest information about that will flow to the public? Time will tell.
