Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, joined several colleagues in sending a formal letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) asking it to examine the effect of staffing cuts at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Nearly 1,000 CISA employees have left since January 2021 — roughly one third of the workforce — through firings and resignations. The agency did not respond to requests for comment on the letter.
The lawmakers’ concern is practical: CISA is the federal government’s primary body for protecting civilian networks, critical infrastructure, and election systems. The letter states that at “precisely the moment when our adversaries are accelerating attacks against critical infrastructure,” the agency has lost a significant share of institutional knowledge, and little is publicly known about how that knowledge has been replaced. Industry leaders and state and local officials reportedly told one senator that they had experienced “reduced responsiveness and support” from CISA and that staffing turbulence had disrupted service delivery. The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposes eliminating nearly 900 additional positions, which the letter flags as compounding the existing gap. GAO has confirmed it received the request and is working through its process to decide whether and when to take it up.