Senate committee advances national cyber director nominee Sean Cairncross

Sean Cairncross got crossover votes — including from Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) — today as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced his nomination to be national cyber director 11-4.

All Republicans on the panel voted for Cairncross. In addition to Peters, Democratic members Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) voted to advance the nominee.

It was not yet known when the nomination could reach the full upper chamber. The Senate was scheduled to have left already for this week’s July Fourth district work period, but GOP lawmakers are trying to push through President Donald Trump’s budget bill by their self-imposed holiday deadline.

Cairncross, former CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and former COO at the Republican National Committee, was nominated by Trump in February to the executive branch role that has been vacant since former National Cyber Director Harry Coker left at the end of the Biden administration.

At his confirmation hearing, the nominee told senators that attacks against the United States are “scaling up” and increasing in sophistication, underscoring the need for enhanced security collaboration between the government and the private sector as well as impactful costs for bad actors.

The nomination of Sean Plankey was not considered today by the committee. Plankey has been nominated to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; even though he did not testify alongside other nominees at the committee’s June 5 hearing, his nomination was originally on the agenda for the panel’s June 12 business meeting, which was postponed.

Plankey’s withdrawal from that hearing was reportedly attributed to delays in his security clearance process. In April, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) placed a hold on Plankey’s nomination, demanding that CISA release “an important, unclassified report by independent cybersecurity experts” on telecommunications security.