August 28, 2017 News & Press Releases · Press Releases and Announcements

Day 17: Eight Members of Trump’s Cybersecurity Council Resign in Protest of Trump’s Reaction to Charlottesville


by Democratic Party of Virginia

Day 17: Eight Members of Trump’s Cybersecurity Council Resign in Protest of Trump’s Reaction to Charlottesville

Last week, eight members of President Trump’s cybersecurity council resigned in protestover the White House’s response to the violence in Charlottesville. They’re just the latest members of a White House advisory council to speak out against Trump. Already the President’s Arts and Humanities Committee, Manufacturing Council, and Strategy and Policy Forum have been disbanded because members were disgusted by Trump’s reaction to Charlottesville — and resigned en masse. And that was just the beginning. The public criticisms of the President reached a crescendo last week, when chief economic advisor Gary Cohn publicly rebuked Trump’s defense of white supremacy.

Yet even as Republicans in the White House openly defy the President, for 17 days, Ed Gillespie has repeatedly refused to condemn the President’s reaction to the violence in Charlottesville.

Why are advisors to the President more willing to denounce Donald Trump’s comments than Ed Gillespie?

The Verge: Members of Trump’s cybersecurity council resign in protest

By Amar Toor

August 28, 2017

Council members cite Trump’s response to Charlottesville and ‘insufficient attention’ to infrastructure in resignation letter

Several members of a White House cybersecurity council resigned last week in protest over President Donald Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville and the decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, among other issues.

In a resignation letter obtained by NextGov, eight members of the 28-person National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) said that the president’s “actions have threatened the security of the homeland I took an oath to protect.” The letter states that the Trump administration is not “adequately attentive to the pressing national security matters within the NIAC’s purview,” and that Trump has paid “insufficient attention” to the growing threats that the US faces to its cybersecurity.

The letter also points to Trump’s failure to condemn neo-Nazis and white nationalists following this month’s violence in Charlottesville, as well as his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, which the signees cite as evidence of the president’s “disregard for the security of American communities.”

“The moral infrastructure of our Nation is the foundation on which our physical infrastructure is built,” the letter reads. “The Administration’s actions undermine that foundation.”

Three Obama-era officials — DJ PatilCristin Dorgelo, and Christy Goldfuss — confirmed their resignations from the council on Twitter over the weekend. Eight names were removed from the NIAC website, Defense One reports.

Established in 2001 under an executive order from President George W. Bush, the NIAC advises the president on critical infrastructure security. Last week’s resignations came ahead of a new NIAC report that called for the US to strengthen its cyber defense systems, adding that the current state of US infrastructure is a in a “pre-9/11 moment.” (Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta used similar language to describe the state of US cybersecurity infrastructure in 2012.)

Two White House business councils were disbanded earlier this month after several executives raised concerns over Trump’s response to the Charlottesville violence.