(c/o AJR) White House Removes Spokeswoman at Agency Responding to SolarWinds Hack Dustin Volz By Jan. 5, 2021 3:13 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-removes-spokeswoman-at-agency-responding-to-solarwinds-hack-11609877635 Dismissal is latest among cybersecurity officials and comes as Trump administration deals with suspected Russian hack WASHINGTON—The White House dismissed the top spokeswoman at the agency responsible for responding to a suspected Russian hack of government computer systems, amid disagreements over how the government is handling the breach. Sara Sendek, the director of public affairs at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the White House’s personnel office informed her Monday evening that her services were no longer needed and instructed her not to come to work after Tuesday. The White House and CISA declined to comment. Ms. Sendek said she wasn’t given a reason for her dismissal, which was first reported by CyberScoop, a cybersecurity news site. Her removal is the latest in a raft of dismissals of senior cybersecurity officials and comes as the Trump administration grapples with the SolarWinds hack. The breach was discovered last month and has compromised at least a half dozen cabinet departments and an unknown number of private companies. Administration officials have jostled over how to respond to the hack, which current and former officials and cybersecurity experts have said amounts to one of the worst intelligence failures on record. In recent weeks, Ms. Sendek and others at CISA wanted to disclose more information to the public about the scope of the SolarWinds attack, but those decisions are largely being made by the White House, according to people familiar with the matter. Democratic lawmakers have accused the Trump administration of not being sufficiently transparent about the hack, which President Trump has largely avoided speaking about. Some senior officials running the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CISA, had grown frustrated with the agency in recent weeks because CISA refused to disclose confidential information shared by private-sector partners over the SolarWinds hack, the people said. CISA customarily assures companies it won’t disclose certain information it receives to encourage organizations to cooperate in investigations into cyberattacks. DHS declined to comment. Ms. Sendek said she had expected to leave the government on Jan. 20, the day of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, and was surprised by her dismissal at a time CISA is working to understand and respond to the SolarWinds breach. A lifelong Republican and political appointee, Ms. Sendek previously worked at the Republican National Committee and the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency. At CISA, she worked under agency director Chris Krebs, who was fired in November by President Trump after Mr. Krebs declared that the 2020 election was free from tampering, putting him at odds with Mr. Trump and his supporters. At least two other senior CISA officials have also been pushed out by the White House in recent months. “I’m proud of the work we did and proud of the work we did under Chris Krebs,” Ms. Sendek said in brief comments when reached by phone. “These are challenging times, but CISA is going to continue to do great work on SolarWinds and elections and everything that comes their way.” CISA’s responsibilities include handling communications to the public, private-sector companies and critical industries about urgent cybersecurity threats. The agency played a central role over the past year working to protect the 2020 elections from foreign interference. Part of that effort included setting up a webpage to debunk rumors circulating online about unfounded election-meddling claims. Mr. Krebs said in congressional testimony last month that the White House expressed displeasure to his staff about the Rumor Control page, which at times rebutted claims being advanced by Mr. Trump, his legal team or other allies. Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.v...@wsj.com _______________________________________________ Infowarrior mailing list Infowarrior@attrition.org https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior
