Sean Plankey re
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President Donald Trump resubmitted his nomination Tuesday after it stalled in the Senate last year.
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President Donald Trump re-nominated Sean Plankey to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Tuesday, after Plankey’s bid for the position ended last year stuck in the Senate.
It’s not clear whether or how Plankey’s resubmitted nomination will overcome the hurdles that left many observers convinced his chance of becoming CISA director had likely ended, but it does definitively signal that the Trump administration still wants Plankey to have the job.
Plankey’s nomination was included in a batch sent to the Senate announced on Tuesday.
CISA spent all of 2025 under Trump without a permanent director. Trump nominated Plankey, who held a couple cybersecurity roles in the first Trump administration, to lead CISA in March. He got a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in July, then won approval from that panel that same month.
But Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., had placed a hold on Plankey’s nomination over a Coast Guard contract that the Homeland Security Department had canceled in part. While he awaited confirmation, Plankey had been serving as a senior adviser to the secretary for the Coast Guard.
A spokesperson for Scott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
North Carolina’s GOP Senate delegation also had placed holds on DHS nominees related to disaster aid to their state. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said last week that the holds would remain until Secretary Kristi Noem appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A White House official had denied reports that Plankey’s nomination was all but over last year.
“President Trump has been clear that he wants all of his nominees confirmed as quickly as possible, including Sean Plankey, who will play a key role in ensuring a strong cyber defense infrastructure,” the official told CyberScoop.
Asked Wednesday at the Surface Navy Association national symposium about what he was doing to convince senators to lift their holds, Plankey answered, “The administration, the White House has to say that this is a priority of us.
“The support, the priority that the White House puts on it is the priority that I’ll get in there,” Plankey said. “I’m doing the best I can to perform, to deliver for the country and I look forward to the Senate confirming me.”
Drew F. Lawrence contributed reporting to this story.
Updated 1/14/26: To include comment from Plankey.
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