“Targeted for removal”
“It is my express opinion that the remaining incumbent OCISO staff is being systematically targeted for removal from the Office of Administration,” departing White House network defense branch chief Dimitrios Vastakis wrote in the memo. The security team had seen incentive pay revoked, scope of duties cut, and access to systems and facilities reduced, Vastakis noted. Staffers’ “positions with strategic and tactical decision making authorities” had also been revoked. “In addition, habitually being hostile to incumbent OCISO staff has become a staple tactic for the new leadership… it has forced the majority of [senior civil servant] OCISO staff to resign.”
Vastakis warned that the transferral of virtually all of the White House’s cybersecurity operations to the White House Communications Agency—a Defense Department organization that falls under the Defense Information Systems Agency—was in “direct conflict” with the advice of the Office of Administration’s general counsel. He added that it also puts information required to be preserved by the Presidential Records Act outside of the Executive Office of the President’s oversight.
“Considering the level of network access and privileged capabilities that cybersecurity staff had,” Vastakis wrote, “it is highly concerning that the entire cybersecurity apparatus is being handed over to non-PRA entities.”
In closing, Vastakis warned, “Allowing for a large portion of institutional knowledge to concurrently walk right out the front door seems contrary to the best interests of the mission and the organization as a whole.” And reflecting on the previous vulnerabilities in White House IT operations, he noted, “given all the changes I’ve seen in the last three months, I foresee the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised once again.”