Trump officials asked CISA to secretly hack a voting machine — and not disclose any vulnerabilities they found

Trump administration officials asked CISA to hack a voting machine just months into his second term CISA was told not to disclose any vulnerabilities to the voting machine manufacturer CISA has been gutted by job cuts and a lack of funding, with many state officials hesitant to trust the agency with securing the midterm elections Towards the start of President Trump’s second term, allies in the Department of Homeland Security tasked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) with secretly acquiring a voting machine with instructions to hack it and not tell anyone except the White House about the vulnerabilities they found.

ProPublica , who spoke to two former administration officials with knowledge of the request, noted that the standard practices of CISA require the agency to let manufacturers know of vulnerabilities in their technology, but the political appointees explicitly asked CISA not to.

“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 told ProPublica .

“This goes against everything CISA represents.” CISA asked to hack voting machine CISA has been a relentless target of the Trump Administration, with the agency’s jobs being cut by one third and the majority of its senior leadership resigning or being fired .

In total, CISA has cut 1,000 jobs since the start of Trump’s second term - largely down to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency - with additional cuts to funding in 2027 likely to result in a further 900 jobs being lost.

As a result of these job cuts, remaining CISA employees told the political appointees that the request to hack a voting machine couldn’t be fulfilled.

Since 2018, CISA has been responsible for helping to protect election infrastructure from cyber attacks and interference, but has had to cut back on much of its work in these areas due to a lack of funding and staff.

Many state officials have been unable to seek election support ahead of the November midterm elections.

As a result of Trump’s cuts to CISA’s jobs and funding, many state officials fear the agency has become a shell occupied by Trump loyalists.

“They’ve violated the entire premise of that information-sharing relationship,” a former high-ranking federal cybersecurity official told ProPublica .

“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.” In response to the claims, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said, “President Trump has done more than any other President to ensure we have free and fair elections.” “I don’t pay attention to what the president says.

I pay attention to what his administration does,” said Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.