Staff within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are now permitted to take the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer, reversing an exemption notice provided late last week saying CISA and other Department of Homeland Security bureaus would not qualify because of national security reasons.
An email sent to CISA staff Wednesday and obtained by Nextgov/FCW says that CISA employees may now participate in the program.Â
“This is a deeply personal decision, and whichever decision you make, we support you,” Acting CISA Director Bridget Bean wrote.
The offer for feds to continue to be paid until Sept. 30 — provided they resign by Feb. 6 — was emailed to every federal worker, seemingly via a new email server installed at OPM in recent days that gave the Trump White House the capability to reach some 2.3 million federal civilian employees. OPM later sent a follow-up email with a list of Q&A notes encouraging employees to take the offer.
The Trump administration has vowed to reduce the size and scope of the cyber agency. CISA has historically enjoyed bipartisan support from members aligned on the notion that cybersecurity is a national security concern and shouldn’t be mired in politicization. But some Republican claims that the agency’s misinformation efforts have targeted conservative voices in the past two years, as well as a second election win for Trump, are setting the agency on a course for potentially far-reaching reevaluation.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem recently said the cyber agency needs to be smaller and more nimble, and that it should cease its work on calling out misinformation and disinformation that propagates across social media platforms. Trump has not yet nominated leadership for CISA.
This story is breaking and may be updated.
