Steve Clemons is a freelance editor for the Atlantic and the National Journal. He is a contributor at CNBC.
Clemons is also a frequent user of the social media site Twitter.
At about 1:30 in the morning of February 3rd, Clemons tweeted that 2 management level members of the Secret Service had been forced to resign (read “fired”) and escorted out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB).
https://twitter.com/SCClemons/status/827403181810348034
Clemons was about to board a flight, so he asked other correspondents to find out what they could and to tweet it back to him. Over the course of the next few hours, news bounced around, indicating that there had been middle of the night ousters of high level Secret Service members.
One of fired @SecretService Mgrs speculates #Trump is restructuring the service but this is speculation #secretservice 3/3
— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017
The thought was that the Trump team was trying to restructure the Secret Service so that he would have his own people in charge.
As the night wore on, however, the Secret Service made it clear that they were not the agency that had been targeted. Still, it was clear that some managerial level employees of the government had been unceremoniously booted out the door.
The @SecretService responded that they are not the agency that had management changes last night. Another Agency did.
— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017
So who was fired? Eventually Clemons dug out what had really happened. It turns out that the Trump Administration had abruptly demanded the resignation of the country’s Federal Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
This office was created by President Obama last September as part of a new cybersecurity plan. They were charged with improving and monitoring the nation’s internet security. To keep all of our data safe from internal and external forces.
Like, perhaps, foreign governments who want to impact our national elections.
I have confirmed that the Chief of Information Security at White House forced to resign. Was error in tagging him as Secret Service. 1/2
— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017
Others – not sure how many – attached to White House security/cyber security/info security – resigned last night & escorted out of EEOB
— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017
Two days ago, employees of the department that is tasked with improving our national cybersecurity were suddenly let go and physically escorted out of the building. Steve Clemons was told that there would likely be a statement later that day about what had happened.
There was no statement. There has been little to no media coverage of the event.
So we move on into the Trump years with ever increasing confusion and a complete lack of transparency. Who is in charge of our cybersecurity now? Who was fired, and why?
We have to wonder if this has anything to with all the leaks that are pouring information out of the White House…
Featured image by John via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)