NEW YORK — When a suspicious video of ballots being ripped up in Pennsylvania gained attention on social media last October, federal agencies responded quickly and called it out as Russian disinformation.
On Election Day in November, bomb threats to polling places in numerous states caused relatively few disruptions to voting. It’s one of the many scenarios covered by the nation’s cybersecurity agency in its outreach to state and local officials.
The future of that assistance is now uncertain.
The Trump administration’s downsizing and disbanding of federal agencies has hit efforts that improve election security and monitor foreign influence. That could create gaps for America’s enemies to exploit the next time the country holds a major election.
“Our adversaries are upping their game every day,” said former Department of Homeland Security cyber chief Suzanne Spaulding. “I’m worried that we are, at the same time, tearing down our defenses.”
Last week, new Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those that target U.S. elections. She also limited the scope of enforcement actions on people who do not disclose lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. She wrote that the changes would “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”
The Trump administration also has made sweeping cuts at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election systems. On Saturday, a senior DHS official said mass firings of federal employees in probationary status had resulted in cuts of more than 130 employees at CISA. It was not immediately clear whether those included 17 employees who had worked on election security who were placed on leave last week.
The DHS official on Saturday also said CISA was pausing all election security activities pending a review of their funding, activities and personnel. The agency was ending its involvement in a voluntary program that shared information about cyber defenses with state and local election officials.
The actions send a message that securing U.S. elections against interference from countries such as Russia, China and Iran is no longer a federal government priority, said Larry Norden, an election expert with the Brennan Center for Justice.
“I think we would be naive to think that the bad guys don’t get that message, too, that there’s going to be less of a cop on the beat to protect our elections,” he said.
State and local governments run elections in the U.S., but federal support in recent years has helped them protect against escalating threats, coordinate with other election offices on security and expose foreign influence campaigns designed to undermine voter confidence.
Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan recalled two times when the federal government was the first to be aware of a threat toward his office. In 2023, federal officials warned of a suspicious envelope heading to its election facilities early enough that it could be intercepted. In 2024, the federal government notified him of an emailed bomb threat to his office before he was aware of it.
“We can’t be the eyes and ears to see everything,” Logan said. “We’re focused on administering the election.”
There are certain elements of that work that only the FBI can do, said Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, which investigated malign influence campaigns in 2024. He said the FBI’s task force “will be missed in 2026 and beyond.”
The top Democrats on the Senate and House committees overseeing election legislation wrote a letter last week to CISA’s top leaders to express “grave concern” over the changes and request more information about how those changes will affect election security.
Trump has sought to stop the government’s tracking of online misinformation, something he has likened to censorship targeting conservatives. Though Trump signed the bill to create CISA in 2018, he fired its director, Christopher Krebs, following the 2020 election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Krebs had vouched for the security of the vote as Trump continued to claim it was rigged.
Biden’s administration embraced government monitoring of foreign influence and frequently alerted the public to such operations in 2024. An FBI investigation also led to the indictment of three Iranian operatives for hacking into Trump’s campaign.
The FBI has worked closely with CISA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in coordinating intelligence on foreign influence operations, efforts led by ODNI’s Foreign Malign Influence Center.
Trump’s new director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has not shared her plans for the center, which was authorized by Congress and is set to expire at the agency’s discretion in 2028. She said in a statement after taking her oath of office Wednesday that she wants to “end the weaponization and politicization” of the intelligence community.
There is no indication the Justice Department plans to stop investigating espionage-related crimes related to election interference. But the gutting of a task force dedicated to that mission has an impact all the same, said David Salvo, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy.
“I’m sure there’s still officers at the FBI who are probably watching this activity in some respect,” he said. “But I’m not convinced that the political masters care all that much, and it’s possible that those officers will be told to stop that work entirely.”
Some Republicans have praised the task force’s removal. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who leads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on the social platform X that the unit was “highly politicized” and shutting it down was the “right move.”
In an emailed statement, the FBI acknowledged the task force had been disbanded but said it would not comment on “specific personnel actions.”
As for CISA, whose broader mission is to protect America’s critical infrastructure, the future is unclear. Trump’s Republican allies have criticized the agency for its work to combat misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said during her Senate confirmation hearing that it had strayed “far off mission.”
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed in an email last week that employees were on leave and said the agency was evaluating “how it has executed its election security mission with a particular focus on any work related to mis-, dis-, and malinformation.” On Saturday, DHS said that portion of its review was complete and the agency was taking “appropriate actions” regarding those employees.
Amid the uncertainty at the federal level, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said he was urging the Legislature to fund election security programs. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said that while Trump can restructure the federal government as he wants, his state depends on CISA’s election services.
“I’m not too concerned with which agency’s providing them, but we need to have them,” he said.
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Cassidy reported from San Diego.
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