House subcommittee presses State Department reauthorization as members warn proposed reorganization could 'break' CDP

The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe held a hearing to review reauthorization of the State Department's Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy and to examine a Trump administration proposal to reorganize the department that members and witnesses said risks undercutting U.S. cyber diplomacy.

Chairman Self opened the hearing saying the panel would “be exploring the role of the State Department in cyber and technology matters,” with a special focus on the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, or CDP. Ranking Member Keating warned the administration's plan “would decimate the department's cyber policy tools by splitting it in half,” moving CDP’s economic functions into one office and hard-security offices into another.

The hearing brought three outside witnesses: Annie Fixler, Director, Center on Cyber and Technology, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Leticia Love Grauer, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office; and Theodore Nemeroff, Co‑founder and Vice President for Data and Compliance, Verific AI. All three testified that Congress should preserve CDP’s integrated structure when it considers reauthorization.

Why it matters: Witnesses and members said CDP performs a mix of diplomacy, capacity building and operational support—ranging from rapid incident response to long‑term infrastructure work—that they said relies on having economic, security and development tools in a single bureau. “We need the countries that we fight with and through to have resilient infrastructure,” said Annie Fixler. Fixler and other witnesses cited CDP’s role…