On April 22, 2026, thirteen months after he was nominated, Sean Plankey asked that the White House withdraw his nomination for the role of CISA Director. During that thirteen-month period, two senators, Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Rick Scott, a Republican, had placed holds on Plankey’s nomination. While Wyden’s hold was related to a CISA report that he wanted declassified and released, Scott’s hold was not related to CISA. Neither hold had anything to do with Plankey’s qualifications for the role or his conduct.
CISA was created in November 2018, and Chris Krebs immediately began serving as the founding director and served until leaving shortly after the 2020 election. Jen Easterly was nominated for the role in April 2021 and was confirmed in July 2021 after a short delay, due to a hold by Senator Scott.
CISA has not had a Senate-confirmed director since Jen Easterly left in January 2025, nearly sixteen months ago. Plankey’s withdrawal restarts the process of identifying a new director for CISA at a time when CISA is in desperate need of leadership. CISA’s staff has been cut dramatically, with nearly one-third departing since January 2025. Global threats continue to escalate, with the US embroiled in a new war in the Middle East. In today’s threat environment, the lack of a CISA director is a clear risk to our national security.
CISA serves a unique role in the federal government. Charged with understanding, managing and reducing risk to the nation’s cyber and physical infrastructure, CISA coordinates between the federal government, state and local governments and the private sector. CISA’s threat intelligence products and services are a critical service to both the public and private sectors.
Plankey’s withdrawal comes at a time when national security leadership is severely depleted. Since mid-March, the DHS Secretary departed and was replaced, and the Attorney General has left her position. The Army and Navy Secretaries have departed, and the National Counterterrorism Center Director resigned in protest of the war in Iran. The TSA has been without a confirmed administrator – or even a nominee – since David Pekoske left in January 2025.
For those who have never worked for or close to the federal government it may not be clear why it is so important that CISA have a Senate confirmed Director in place. When an organization within the federal government lacks a Senate confirmed leader, most day-to-day work continues, but the organization loses authority, speed and political influence. For CISA this affects the organization’s ability to lead crisis response, drive change across the interagency, defend its budget priorities within DHS and on the Hill and develop and implement long term strategy.
The Federal Vacancies Reform Act limits the time that acting officials can serve. Although there are some limited exceptions, generally, officials can only fill a role in an acting capacity for 210 days. For lengthy vacancies, this results in a series of acting officials. This lack of continuity limits momentum. In circumstances where organizations have left an acting official in their role for more than 210 days, courts have held that some actions taken after 210 days can be invalidated, further reducing the acting official’s willingness to make significant decisions.
Even during the first 210 days, most acting officials do not act like they are the incumbent, even if they are encouraged to do so. They operate more as caretakers for fear of being accused of overstepping by their colleagues or simply of taking the organization in a different direction than the eventual appointee will choose. They don’t make big moves such as developing new strategies, delegating new authorities, initiating reorganizations or taking strong policy stands that could bring them into conflict with Senate-confirmed peers.
Acting officials are usually career officials. Consequently, the organization’s political leadership nearly always excludes acting officials from political appointee only discussions that would have included the Senate-confirmed individual in that position, reducing the influence of that role until an individual is confirmed. This carries into a variety of interagency bodies that are explicitly or implicitly restricted to permanent incumbents or where the acting official is allowed to attend but not taken seriously.
Members of advisory boards and interagency committees are frequently personally appointed by directors and secretaries. These are generally held vacant until there is a Senate-confirmed individual in place, robbing the department or agency of valuable advice.
These challenges have played out in CISA over the past sixteen months. DHS-level decisions have led to significant budget cuts, major CISA programs being shuttered, resources being shifted away from election security and industrial control systems work and the loss of large numbers of promising early career staff. The activities of the Cyber Safety Review Board and other CISA councils have also been sharply curtailed. Had there been a Senate-confirmed CISA director in place, the Department level decisions that led to these outcomes might have played out differently.
An important role of the CISA director is to a visible messenger for the importance the United States Government places on cybersecurity. This visibility provides the director with the recognition and gravitas needed to speak authoritatively in a crisis and drive public and private sector partners to act. Acting career officials cannot and have not taken up this mantle. In addition, delays have been evident in the release of public information such as threat bulletins and joint advisories, because it is harder to work through interagency disagreements without a confirmed CISA Director.
After sixteen months of cuts and leadership churn, it is unclear that CISA is prepared to respond to a major incident. CISA and our national security need a director who is empowered to do more than issue emergency directives and binding operational directives.
Part II of this article will be available tomorrow and will discuss Senate holds, delays, and a broken confirmation system.
