Senate GOP: OPM firing is ‘not enough’

Senate Republicans were quick Friday to warn the White House that the resignation of the embattled agency head at the center of a massive government hack does not let the administration off the hook.

Shortly after Katherine Archuleta, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, stepped down over the breach at her agency, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) McConnell called on the White House to “articulate a credible plan of action” on cybersecurity.

{mosads}“That means showing a resolve to get to the bottom of what happened, that means giving the American people renewed confidence in a creaking bureaucracy, and that means pledging to work with policymakers to enact real reforms rather than accepting failure,” he said in a statement.

The Obama administration has been blasted in the wake of the OPM hacks — which exposed over 22 million people’s information — for not taking network security seriously.

Archuleta has borne the brunt of much of this criticism. Over a slate of hearings in recent weeks, the ousted agency head was berated by lawmakers for failing to heed her inspector general’s warnings of serious security defects in the OPM networks.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle called on her to resign.

But even after getting her to step down, several policymakers on the right echoed McConnell’s remarks. They cautioned that changed leadership will not necessarily address the government’s broader cybersecurity problems.

“Not enough,” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who had previously written the OPM requesting more information on the breaches.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the first senator to call for Archuleta’s resignation, agreed.

“OPM’s consistent failure to properly address and react to these cyber attacks results from a much larger, systemic lack of accountability within the Obama administration,” he said. “We must continue to investigate the true depth of this attack and ensure that proper safeguards are put in place to prevent future breaches of this magnitude.”