Trump’s cyber chief pick has little experience in The Cyber
GOP lawyer Sean Cairncross will be learning on the fly, as we also say hi to new intelligence boss Tulsi Gabbard
President Trump has reportedly chosen a candidate for National Cyber Director — another top tech appointee with no professional experience in that role.
Citing non-public documents listing multiple planned Trump nominations, Politico reports the President intended to nominate Sean Cairncross to take over the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) following the departure of Biden appointee Harry Coker.
We've contacted the White House to confirm the news.
Cairncross, a lawyer by profession, began his career at the prestigious Covington and Burling law firm, later working as a partner at Holtzman Vogel, which specializes in political and regulatory litigation. He also served as both deputy assistant to the President and senior White House advisor to the Chief of Staff during the first Trump administration before being confirmed by the US Senate in 2019 to serve as the CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US foreign aid agency that provides grants to developing countries to aid in economic growth.
Cairncross also has an extensive history as legal counsel for the Republican party. He was the chief operating officer of the Republican National Committee from 2015 to 2016, previously worked at the RNC as chief counsel from 2007 to 2009, and served as the deputy executive director and general counsel for the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 2009 to 2013.
Like Trump's pick for White House Chief Information Officer, Cairncross' professional history lacks direct professional experience for the role, though even the CIO pick served in a related position as the CISO of an AI startup, putting him in a position at least adjacent to his Trump-appointed responsibilities.
Cairncross' only apparent exposure to cybersecurity policy and strategy - key responsibilities of the National Cyber Director - stems from his time as a senior visiting fellow at Purdue University's Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy. The institute, co-founded in 2021 by former Trump under-secretary of state and ex-DocuSign CEO Keith Krach, describes its mission as a bipartisan group aiming to "accelerate the innovation and adoption of trusted technologies to defeat … the weaponization of technology by authoritarian regimes."
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Cairncross' bio on the Krach Institute website also mentions that, in his role as senior White House advisor to the Chief of Staff, he sat proxy on the National Security Council Principals Committee, and also "provided counsel on a variety of issues including matters related to national security."
We reached out to the institute for further comment and information.
By contrast, the former National Cyber Director Coker holds a law degree but built his career in national security, and spent decades in non-political roles within the US government, focusing on security and intelligence.
Coker spent 17 years with the CIA, serving in both the Directorate of Digital Innovation and the Directorate of Science and Technology. He later served as the executive director of the NSA before stepping into his National Cyber Director role under Biden.
If given a nod by the Senate, Cairncross will be the third person to be confirmed for the cyber director role since the role was established in 2021. The first was intelligence career man Chris Inglis. ®
Speaking of interesting choices for critical jobs, former Democratic congresswoman-cum-Trump-ally Tulsi Gabbard was confirmed by the US Senate to serve as Director of National Intelligence despite some misgivings about her qualifications, and previous statements and relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin and former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Gabbard, a military veteran who left the Democratic party in 2022, has also never held an intelligence role in the US government, with her closest relationship to the intelligence community being her service on the House Homeland Security Committee when serving as a representative from Hawaii.
It wasn’t a given that Gabbard was going to pass muster in the Senate, though her confirmation vote ultimately came down on party lines, with a single Republican defecting to join Democrats in opposing her: Former majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
“The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the President receives are tainted by a Director of National Intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment,” McConnell said, describing Gabbard as being unprepared for the responsibility of her role.
“Edward Snowden’s treasonous betrayal of the United States and its most sensitive lawful intelligence activities endangered sources, methods, and lives. Japan is among America’s closest treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific, and the risk of conflict in the region is the product of Chinese aggression, not western ‘threat inflation,’” McConnell added.
“Russia’s escalation of its unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine threatens American interests and is solely the responsibility of Vladimir Putin.
“Entrusting the coordination of the intelligence community to someone who struggles to acknowledge these facts is an unnecessary risk,” the Republican senator concluded.