From: Politico
By TIM STARKS
With help from Martin Matishak and Li Zhou
Christopher Painter, the former State Department cybersecurity coordinator, told POLITICO it could mean good things for cyber at Foggy Bottom. “I don’t think the cyber issue was ever a passion for Tillerson; I don’t think this was ever a personal priority for him,” Painter said. “My sense — and all of this is speculative because it’s hard to predict — my sense is that Pompeo because of his background in the CIA and others will have a better appreciation of the security parts of the portfolio.” But Michael Sulmeyer, cybersecurity project director at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, said the new secretary will have his hands full with North Korea diplomacy, trade tariffs, the Iran nuclear deal and more. “There’s so much on the agenda for the current and incoming secretary of State,” he told MC. “I frankly just hope that cybersecurity makes it on the agenda at some point.”
Both Painter and Sulmeyer were more confident than not that Pompeo would leave in place a plan rolled out this year to reorganize and strengthen the department’s cybersecurity operations, after Tillerson last year eliminated Painter’s office before replacing it with an office that many considered a downgrade at the time. They were less sure about how the State Department approach to Russian hacking might change, leaning toward thinking Pompeo might be equally or more adversarial than his predecessor given his recent remarks about Russian election hacking. But top House Intelligence Democrat Adam Schiff found Pompeo’s other stances worrisome. “Director Pompeo has not always been willing to stand up to the president, particularly when Trump has questioned the intelligence community’s conclusions on Russia, and we will need the new secretary to be willing to speak hard truths to the president,” he said in a statement.
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