- Oct 17, 2011
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At least six career staffers at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were suspended with pay this summer after organizing a polygraph test that the agency’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, failed.
The Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into whether the staff provided “false information” about the need for the test — which was scheduled after Gottumukkala sought access to certain highly sensitive cyber intelligence shared with the agency.
That material was designated as a controlled access program — meaning its circulation was supposed to be tightly restricted to those assigned as need-to-know — and the agency that furnished it to CISA further required that any need-to-know employees first pass what is known as a counter-intelligence polygraph, according to four current officials and one former official.
The incident this July and the subsequent fallout — which has not been reported before — have angered career staff, alarmed fellow Trump administration appointees and raised questions about Gottumukkala’s leadership of the nearly $3 billion cyber defense agency.
“Instead of taking ownership and saying, ‘Hey, I screwed up,’ he gets other people blamed and potentially ruins their careers,” said a current official, who described Gottumukkala’s tenure at CISA so far as “a nightmare” for the agency.
In an emailed statement, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Gottumukkala “did not fail a sanctioned polygraph test.”
The second current official called the allegation from DHS that the polygraph was unsanctioned “comical,” since someone in Gottumukkala’s position would eventually have to sign off on their own polygraph request. “No action officer or assistant signs for their principal to go to a polygraph without them knowing,” the official said.
“He ultimately chose to sit for this polygraph,” said the first current official. “There is only one person to blame for that.”
The Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into whether the staff provided “false information” about the need for the test — which was scheduled after Gottumukkala sought access to certain highly sensitive cyber intelligence shared with the agency.
That material was designated as a controlled access program — meaning its circulation was supposed to be tightly restricted to those assigned as need-to-know — and the agency that furnished it to CISA further required that any need-to-know employees first pass what is known as a counter-intelligence polygraph, according to four current officials and one former official.
The incident this July and the subsequent fallout — which has not been reported before — have angered career staff, alarmed fellow Trump administration appointees and raised questions about Gottumukkala’s leadership of the nearly $3 billion cyber defense agency.
“Instead of taking ownership and saying, ‘Hey, I screwed up,’ he gets other people blamed and potentially ruins their careers,” said a current official, who described Gottumukkala’s tenure at CISA so far as “a nightmare” for the agency.
In an emailed statement, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Gottumukkala “did not fail a sanctioned polygraph test.”
The second current official called the allegation from DHS that the polygraph was unsanctioned “comical,” since someone in Gottumukkala’s position would eventually have to sign off on their own polygraph request. “No action officer or assistant signs for their principal to go to a polygraph without them knowing,” the official said.
“He ultimately chose to sit for this polygraph,” said the first current official. “There is only one person to blame for that.”
