#kristi — Public Fediverse posts

The interim chief of the nation’s top #cyber defense agency
had convinced many people he was not up to the task long before his sudden reassignment late Thursday.

But the one person who mattered most
— Department of Homeland Security Secretary #Kristi #Noem
— stood firm on keeping him in place.

In his roughly nine months as acting director of the "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency",
#Madhu #Gottumukkala made a series of decisions that alienated career staff,
created friction with Trump appointees
and provoked scrutiny from influential lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Nine current and four former cyber officials who spoke with POLITICO over the last several weeks said his tenure was so chaotic that it was hampering the agency’s core mission:
protecting sensitive government networks from a crush of cyberattacks.

All were granted anonymity for fear of retribution.

The frustration with Gottumukkala was shared by several administration officials,
two of whom told Noem as far back as November that Gottumukkala should not be in charge at #CISA,
according to three current cybersecurity officials with knowledge of those conversations.

But Noem was hesitant to remove Gottumukkala until recently
because she and DHS special adviser #Corey #Lewandowski
— Donald Trump’s former campaign manager
— feared it would reflect poorly on her,
as she was already facing immense pressure over DHS’s immigration crackdown and other issues,
two of those three officials said.

Noem’s reversal comes just days before a long-awaited Tuesday appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
where she is expected to face tough questions from lawmakers in both parties.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/28/cisa-cyber-leadership-madhu-gottumukkala-00804515

The chief federal judge in Minnesota ordered the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in court on Friday
to explain why he should not be held in contempt
for violating court orders.

The order by Judge Patrick J. Schiltz
— which he acknowledged was “an extraordinary step”
— adds to the administration’s legal fights

while it also faces public and political pressure over the aggressive tactics of its agents,
who have shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in three weeks.

Trump shook up the leadership of the Minnesota enforcement operation on Monday
by planning to pull its director of on-the-ground enforcement,
Gregory Bovino, according to two U.S. officials.

That came after two days of outrage over the killing of Alex Pretti,
who was shot and killed by federal agents over the weekend.

Trump said he was sending #Tom #Homan, his border czar,
to oversee the operations and that Mr. Homan would report directly to him.

⭐️The order by Judge Schiltz, issued late Monday,
summons the ICE acting director
#Todd #Lyons to appear before him on Friday and explain why he should not be held in contempt for violating court orders arising from the Trump administration’s crackdown.

“The court’s patience is at an end,” he wrote.

But the judge did give Mr. Lyons an out:
👉He said he would cancel the hearing if ICE quickly released an immigrant whom he said had been wrongly detained by agents.

The crackdown has prompted a flood of legal challenges,
including from state and local officials
⚠️who asked another federal judge on Monday to declare that the surge of some 3,000 immigration agents had effectively become an #unconstitutional #occupation.

The Trump administration also defended itself on Monday at a hearing over the state’s effort to investigate the death of Mr. Pretti.

The shooting of Mr. Pretti
— who was killed while being pinned down by agents, according to videos of the encounter
— sparked outage across the political spectrum,
including among some Republicans who have called for the Trump administration to change course.

Trump met on Monday with #Kristi #Noem, the homeland security secretary, and #Corey #Lewandowski, her top aide, in the Oval Office for more than two hours,
according to two people briefed on the meeting.

The president did not suggest in the meeting that Ms. Noem and Mr. Lewandowski were at risk of losing their jobs, those people said.

But it was another sign of Trump’s concern about the reaction to the killing of Mr. Pretti and the fatal shooting of another Minneapolis resident, Renee Good, by a federal agent on Jan. 7.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/27/us/minneapolis-shooting-ice-minnesota?smid=nytcore-ios-share