The Trump transition team is honing in on Sean Plankey as its choice to be the next director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Any decision about who will head the roughly $3 billion Department of Homeland Security agency is not official until President-elect Donald Trump announces his pick for the Senate-confirmed role, the three people cautioned. But Plankey, a senior cyber policy official from Trump’s first administration and a veteran of the Pennsylvania National Guard and U.S. Coast Guard, is firmly the leading contender at this point in the process.
The CISA Director announcement and those for other senior cybersecurity roles in the new administration “are expected soon,” said one of the people, who like the others was granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing personnel process.
Plankey declined to comment, and the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the nomination.
Plankey is seen by cybersecurity professionals and former government officials as a capable hand to helm the government’s premier civilian cyber defense agency — a critical asset as the government continues to assess the damage from several major Chinese hacks, including of the Treasury Department and several U.S. telecommunications networks.
In Trump’s first term, Plankey served as principal deputy assistant secretary of the Energy Department’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response. Before that, he worked as the director for maritime and pacific cybersecurity policy on Trump’s National Security Council.
Those credentials could put Plankey on a glide path for Senate confirmation. Shortly thereafter, however, he could find himself navigating a delicate balance between the agency and GOP skeptics.
Trump created CISA in 2018 to protect key government and civilian networks from physical and digital attacks. Roughly two years later, however, he fired the agency’s first director, Chris Krebs, after CISA declared that year’s presidential election the “most secure in American history” and after CISA created a website to help debunk election-related disinformation and misinformation. CISA is responsible for coordinating between federal, state and local election authorities to help protect election systems against foreign interference.
Congressional Republicans have since threatened to slash the agency’s budget or even shutter it, arguing that CISA’s combating of foreign misinformation during the 2020 election unfairly targeted conservatives and amounted to government censorship.
While the Supreme Court ultimately dismissed those allegations, Trump allies and leading Congressional Republicans are still out for blood. Earlier this year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the new head of the Senate committee overseeing CISA, told POLITICO he wanted to “eliminate” CISA, though this would be difficult given the agency is established by law under Trump.
The potential pick of Plankey to lead CISA comes as current CISA Director Jen Easterly prepares to step down from the role on Jan. 20, having served since being confirmed by the Senate in mid-2021.
