Two key Trump administration nominations for national cyber director (NCD) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) advanced with ease out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee earlier this week and are now headed to the full Senate for further consideration.
The committee on Monday approved the nomination of Sean Cairncross to become the next NCD by an 11-4 vote – with only Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Andy Kim, D-N.J., John Fetterman, D-Pa. and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., voting no.
Cairncross was nominated to lead the Office of the National Cyber Director – responsible for advising the president on cybersecurity policy and strategy – by President Donald Trump in February.
While Cairncross, a former Republican National Committee official, lacks some of the experience that the first two national cyber directors brought to the job, the nominee assured senators during his confirmation hearing that while he doesn’t “have a technical background in cyber” he has “been on the user side of this.”
“I’ve had to deal with foreign-nation attacks on our systems. We’ve worked with the FBI and the intelligence community to learn about them, to stop them, and to monitor those attacks,” Cairncross said last month. “On the management side, I have run thousands of people and billions of dollars in funds, and in doing those jobs, I surround myself with smart people … and take their advice.”
Some of his pledges if confirmed as national cyber director include reauthorizing the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, ramping up strategies to defend against China-based hacker groups Salt and Volt Typhoon, extending the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, and bolstering interagency and public-private partnerships.
Meanwhile, James Woodruff II, Trump’s nominee for MSPB, also saw his nomination advance out of the same Senate committee this week on an 8-4 vote.
If the full senate confirms his nomination, Woodruff would become the second member of the independent quasi-judicial board that protects the Federal workforce against prohibited personnel and partisan political practices.
The board consists of three members and hears appeals from Federal employees who have been fired or disciplined. The board, however, was left without its required two-member quorum after the Supreme Court in May upheld Trump’s firing of MSPB chair Cathy Harris.
Raymond Limon, MSPB’s former third member, retired in late February leaving only Henry Kerner, a Republican, as the board’s only current member. Kerner was sworn into his position in June 2024 and became acting chairman following Harris’s removal earlier this year.
Woodruff would bring to the role eight years of Federal civil service through the U.S. Air Force where he was assigned to the civil litigation directorate and advised commanders on employment law issues, and litigated cases before MSPB and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on the behalf of the Air Force.
“If confirmed, I look forward to the opportunity to work closely with the other Board member, Henry Kerner, to protect the federal civil services’ merit-based system,” said Woodruff in a statement for his confirmation hearing.