This Cybersecurity Agency Is Supposed to Protect U.S. Elections. Officials Fear It’s Been Compromised by Trump.

Photo illustration by Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Source images: Christopher Mark Juhn/Anadolu via Getty Images, Erlon Silva - TRI Digital via Getty Images, Mironov Konstantin via Getty Images. A few months into President Donald Trump’s second term, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security made an unusual request of its agency focused on cybersecurity: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it. The appointees wanted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to procure the machine, examine it and report back the findings so they could be given to the White House, according to two former administration officials with knowledge of the request. The proposition was shocking to CISA’s career staffers, according to one of the former officials.