Trump Officials Asked Agency to Obtain and Hack a Voting Machine

Political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to secretly purchase and compromise a voting machine, analyze its vulnerabilities, and deliver the results to the White House without notifying the manufacturer. Career CISA staff objected, saying the agency’s mission is defense, not conducting clandestine intrusions, and feared the effort was intended to generate politically useful findings to challenge election outcomes. The operation never proceeded: specialists who could have performed such testing had been laid off amid roughly 1,000 departures that cut CISA’s workforce by about a third, and a planned FY2027 budget would slash another $700 million and eliminate the election-security program, potentially removing roughly 900 more positions.

Those events sit against a broader breakdown in trust between federal election defenders and state officials. CISA, once credited with saying 2020 was the most secure U.S. election, saw its director removed after disputing fraud claims, and subsequent declassification of sensitive state-shared material eroded cooperation. Other federal moves included a DNI-led seizure of machines in Puerto Rico that found no supporting evidence and Justice Department outreach to Missouri clerks about Dominion equipment. CISA issued a short election-security plan only days before early voting; officials warn the main risk now is political - an administration that has reduced defenses and pursued contested claims may dispute legitimate results - while the White House defends its transparency and actions.