President Donald Trump has made supposed voting integrity a fundamental component of his brand since the 2020 presidential election. So why did his administration try to hack a voting machine?
Insiders that spoke to ProPublica shared that political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security had asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, to covertly obtain a voting machine, break into it, and report back to the White House.
The directive reportedly shocked CISA employees, who felt the request was antithetical to their mission of thwarting potential hackers. Furthermore, staff were concerned by another DHS request that would have restricted CISA from notifying the voting machine companies of their findings.
“My thought was they could keep it in their back pocket to invalidate any results they don’t like,” one former official told ProPublica. “This goes against everything CISA represents.”
The request was ultimately not fulfilled, in no small part because the agents capable of pulling off such an operation were terminated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Eventually the political appointees stopped pressing the issue, according to ProPublica.
Over the course of Trump’s second administration, more than 1,000 employees have been pushed out of CISA—about a third of the agency. But CISA could be on the brink of more devastating cuts: The president’s 2027 budget proposal would shrink funding for the agency by $700 million, a number that could result in another 900 employees getting axed.
Against all democratic principles, Trump has repeatedly attacked the concept of voting and stoked election conspiracies for his own personal gain. He has continually made unfounded claims about voter fraud, pressured state election officials, strong-armed state legislatures to reshape their districts for the benefit of his agenda, and attempted to dismantle mail-in voting—all to remain in power and disregard or overthrow electoral results that he has perceived as less than favorable.