WASHINGTON — The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is among the offices being permanently downsized as a result of the ongoing partial government shutdown, The Post has learned.
The RIFs (reductions in force), which started Friday, will fire some of CISA’s 2,540 employees as well as thousands more within the federal bureaucracy — after President Trump repeatedly threatened to target offices cherished by Democrats if the party’s senators refused to reopen the government.
In an indication of the possible scale of the RIF, CISA had planned to keep just 889 employees on duty during a shutdown while furloughing 65% of its workforce.
CISA, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, was formerly led by Chris Krebs during Trump’s first term and publicly dismissed Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election, thumbing their nose at the president’s objection to mail-in ballots and calling it “the most secure in American history.”
One administration source told The Post that CISA had pumped out “disinformation.”
Up to 750,000 are being furloughed each day during the shutdown, some of which could be swept up in the permanent firings sought by OMB. In total, around 2 million people work for the federal government, excluding the military and Postal Service.
A second source said that multiple departments were hit with the “substantial” job cuts on the 10th day of the shutdown.
Senate Democrats have sought to use the impasse as leverage to extend Obamacare health insurance subsidies due to sunset on Dec. 31 for about 22 million people. Some Republicans favor extension, but GOP leaders have demanded that a temporary seven-week funding bill pass before a healthcare deal.
Republicans have objected to a Democratic proposal that would restore nearly $200 billion over 10 years in subsidies for asylum seekers and hospital reimbursements for illegal immigrants.
White House budget director Russ Vought announced Friday that permanent job reductions have begun at federal agencies after Senate Democrats again blocked a reopening of the government, with just three upper-chamber Democrats siding with Republicans.
“The RIFs have begun,” Vought tweeted.
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