comment Jen Easterly has weighed in on the US Army Secretary firing her from a prestigious West Point teaching post a day after the US Military Academy announced the appointment.
The termination, announced where else on X by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, seemingly proves the former CISA chief's comments about loyalty to the president taking precedence over loyalty to the nation.
In a lengthy LinkedIn post on Thursday, the former US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) chief said "the opportunity to serve again at my alma mater was rescinded a casualty of casually manufactured outrage that drowned out the quiet labor of truth and the steady pulse of integrity."
Easterly, who described herself as a "lifelong independent" and noted her military and public service under both Republican and Democratic administrations, said she has "worked my entire career not as a partisan, but as a patriot not in pursuit of power, but in service to the country I love and in loyalty to the Constitution I swore to protect and defend, against all enemies."
She added, this isn't about her. "This is about something larger," Easterly wrote:
Two days earlier, in a now-deleted LinkedIn post, the US Military Academy at West Point announced that Easterly would return to the academy as a Robert F. McDermott Distinguished Chair in West Point's Department of Social Sciences, where she previously taught economics and national security.
Soon after, far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer criticized Easterly's appointment on X, posting: "Why are Biden holdovers who worked to silence Trump supporters under Biden getting elevated to high level jobs under the Trump admin?"
On Wednesday, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll fired Easterly before she even began her new gig. "I have immediately directed West Point to&Rescind Jen Easterly's offer to serve as the McDermott Chair," Driscoll xeeted.
When asked why Driscoll rescinded Easterly's appointment, and whether it was related to Loomer's attacks on social media, a US Army spokesperson emailed The Register the following statement:
The statement doesn't answer either of our questions. But if we had to guess, we'd say Easterly was fired because as CISA director, she advocated for election security, which includes securing voting infrastructure and fighting online disinformation, both the kind that originates from Russian troll farms and the home-grown kind.
Easterly's predecessor, Chris Krebs, spoke out against the latter kind and also faced the wrath of the Trump administration.
Krebs, a Republican who Trump appointed to lead the CISA in 2018, was fired via tweet five years ago after he publicly contradicted Trump's false claims of election fraud, describing the 2020 US presidential election "the most secure in American history."
In April, Krebs became the target of a Department of Justice probe and an executive order accusing him of using CISA to pursue a "partisan mission" and covering up alleged proof that "the 2020 election was rigged and stolen." Krebs, along with all of his former SentinelOne co-workers, also had their security clearances revoked.
Now with Easterly's apparent blackballing, both of CISA's former directors have landed on Trump's hit list. Perhaps current nominee Sean Plankey, slated to become CISA's third boss since the first Trump administration created the cyber agency, should reconsider.
The Army Secretary's moves also reminded us of Easterly's concerns about CISA being gutted due to a "mandate for loyalty to a person over loyalty to the Constitution of the United States of America."
"That's a loss for everybody in our nation, because cybersecurity is national security," Easterly said, during a panel discussion on the outskirts of the annual RSA Conference in April. "Americans should be bothered if there's some other loyalty being required."
Three months later, her words seem not only prescient, but also prophetic. �
