US Domestic — 2026-07-18

Trump Administration Cuts Thousands of Election-Focused Federal Workers Across CISA FBI and ODNI as Election Assistance Commission Loses All Commissioners

BLUFSimultaneous elimination of every federal election-security node shifts the entire 2026 midterm defense burden onto state officials who lack the capacity, clearances, and intelligence feeds to detect foreign interference independently.

CBS News reported that CISA has lost nearly 1,000 personnel, about one-third of its workforce, since early 2025, with staffing falling to roughly 2,500 from about 3,400 a year earlier; the agency also ended federal support for the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, cutting off the cooperative threat-sharing arrangement that helped state and local election offices guard against cyberattacks 1. Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolved the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force on February 5, 2025, her first day in office, while the Justice Department reassigned senior Civil Rights Division voting-rights attorneys, redirected the Voting Section toward voter-roll maintenance and fraud investigations, and withdrew from several voting-rights cases 1. Then-ODNI Director Tulsi Gabbard cut the office's workforce by more than 40% and eliminated the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which had housed the Election Threats Executive, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio closed the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office in April 2025 1. On July 9 the White House fired the Election Assistance Commission's two Democratic commissioners and its remaining Republican commissioner resigned, leaving the four-seat panel without active leadership 1.

Analysis
The simultaneous drawdown of CISA's election-security workforce, the FBI's foreign-influence unit, ODNI's Foreign Malign Influence Center, and the now-vacant EAC removes overlapping federal safeguards as the 2026 midterm cycle enters administration season, with quorum loss halting new voting-system certifications and clearinghouse functions Congress created the commission to perform, pushing that burden onto state election offices already reporting capacity gaps. Moderate confidence attaches to the scale of the reductions, resting on consistent CBS reporting and administration budget filings, though the account traces to a single original investigation without independent cross-outlet corroboration. April reporting documented political appointees arriving and the restructuring's launch; this cycle shows the accumulated result, with the EAC rendered inquorate for the first time since its creation. The reductions may instead reflect routine post-establishment consolidation and administration-stated cost savings at newly created offices rather than a deliberate campaign against election-security oversight, and no observable indicator points to whether or when the White House intends to restore EAC leadership.

3 sources