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“Trump Appointees Asked Federal Cybersecurity Agency to Secretly Hack a Voting Machine as Pressure on Elections Mounts Political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security asked the nation’s top election security agency to secretly obtain a voting machine and hack it, according to a new ProPublica investigation. Two former administration officials told ProPublica that a few months into Trump’s second term, appointees wanted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, to acquire a machine, examine it, and report the findings so they could be passed to the White House. CISA staff were also told not to alert the voting machine company if they found any flaws, which goes against the agency’s standard practice. Career staffers were shocked, and one former official said they feared the results would be kept “in their back pocket to invalidate any [election] results they don’t like.” Staff told the appointees the request was impossible, partly because the agents capable of it had just been laid off by Elon Musk’s DOGE, and the appointees eventually stopped pushing. The White House said Trump has done more than any president to ensure free and fair elections, while DHS and CISA did not respond to ProPublica’s questions.” From Aaron Parnas newsletter