Kathy Boockvar recently spoke with NPR about the Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and termination of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force. Both these agencies have been key in helping defend against foreign influence in U.S. elections and supporting election officials’ work to strengthen election security, and the cuts to them will have significant consequences.
Boockvar emphasized that much of the work that was done by these teams in the last 5-10 years – much of which began during the first Trump administration and was a significant achievement of theirs – was a tremendous support to state and local election officials and now will leave gaps that adversaries will likely quickly attempt to exploit. Election and security officials are resilient and will have to find solutions to fill those gaps, which adds challenges and costs to already difficult jobs.
“Every cut made to our election security and foreign malign influence operations is like handing a gift on a silver platter to our foreign adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran,” said Boockvar. “It directly strengthens their ability to invade our national security and interfere in our elections, leaving every American citizen more vulnerable.”
Read the full article here: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5293521/foreign-influence-elections-cisa-trump