‘hot Mess’: Former Trump Cyber Leader Slams Dhs Leadership Void

Bridget Bean, the former acting head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the early months of the second Trump administration, is raising serious concerns about the lack of Senate-confirmed senior leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, arguing that it’s hamstringing DHS’s ability to execute the president’s priorities.

“I am really concerned about the lack of permanent, confirmed people,” she said in her first interview about federal agencies under DHS since retiring from government late last year. “You’ve got to get leaders in there.” She added that having officials confirmed by the Senate is “very different than someone in an acting capacity who is serving in the role. It’s not the same.”

Bean shared her perspective on the department’s leadership crisis after POLITICO approached her for comment on her participation in a Signal group chat, where she wrote on November 11 to other current and former Trump DHS political appointees that the department was “a hot mess.” A participant in the group recently showed POLITICO the message. The existence of the group chat and her message has not been previously reported.

“My comments about DHS as ‘a hot mess’ is if you don’t have permanent leadership … you’re not working,” she said. “It’s just so much more important for the organization to have it.”

Spokespeople for DHS and CISA did not respond to requests for comment.

Bean left CISA in September after serving in various senior leadership roles at the cyber defense agency for nearly four years, most recently as its executive director from August 2024 to September 2025. She stepped in as acting director after former CISA Director Jen Easterly departed following President Donald Trump’s return to office.

CISA’s Deputy Director Madhu Gottumukkala took on the role of acting director last May, though his tenure has not been entirely smooth. POLITICO reported in December that Gottumukkala failed a polygraph test last year. And last week, POLITICO reported that he uploaded sensitive CISA files to a public version of ChatGPT.

While Trump nominated Sean Plankey — a former National Security Council and Energy Department official — in March 2025 to step in as CISA director, Plankey’s nomination has languished in the Senate and failed to be brought to the floor for a vote before the end of the year. This forced Trump to renominate Plankey in recent weeks, though two GOP senators have placed a hold on his nomination.

The lack of Senate-confirmed leadership at CISA comes as the agency is reeling from sweeping budget and personnel cuts under Trump’s second term. Around one-third of the agency’s 3,000 employees were either laid off or left last year.

Bean declined to comment on the major cuts to CISA over the last year. She said that “a lot of really smart people” have left the agency, though she was optimistic that the next generation of civil servants would eventually take their place.

At DHS more broadly, 25 top jobs have either an acting leader or are listed as vacant, according to DHS’s leadership organizational chart. DHS houses several agencies, including CISA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where Bean served in senior roles before joining CISA.

She is now the president of consulting firm Via Stella, and is also a visiting fellow for homeland security at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

Trump signed into law a measure establishing CISA in 2018, but the agency fell out of his favor when its former leaders concluded that the 2020 presidential election was secure — which Trump has repeatedly disputed without evidence.

Bean noted that career officials at CISA need to know that their leaders have their back and will “push them to … be better than they were yesterday, to understand the threats of tomorrow. That’s just what good leadership does, but it’s very hard to do it in an acting capacity.”

She added that the lack of permanent leadership at CISA and FEMA also makes it harder to communicate effectively with DHS headquarters on agency priorities.

“It’s hard to have that consistent vision articulated and get them to really understand the agency, and understand the mission,” she said. “Getting people on board is really, really, really, really critical. Career staff continue to do the best they can to do their job, but they’re doing it perhaps without the full view and vision of what the component head wants, what DHS wants and what the president wants.”

When asked if DHS’s emphasis on immigration under Secretary Kristi Noem has come at the expense of its cybersecurity work, she said that Noem “has a tough job” and “her priorities are the president’s priorities.”

“I know she knows [cyber] is important,” she said. “I know she considers it a pillar of homeland security.”