Could Nick Andersen’s leadership outlast the clock on his acting role?

The clock is run­ning out on Nick An­der­sen’s time to serve as ac­ting di­rec­tor of the Cy­ber­se­cu­rity and In­fras­truc­tu­re Se­cu­rity Agency, but there ap­pear to be ef­forts afoot to keep him in the role for lon­ger, with no per­ma­nent no­mi­nee in sight.

There’s broad sup­port for the idea of An­der­sen re­tai­ning the po­si­tion one way or another, which he’s held since Fe­bruary of this year. Since then, Sean Plan­key with­drew his no­mi­na­tion for the Se­na­te-con­fir­med po­si­tion in April, and in June, De­part­ment of Ho­me­land Se­cu­rity Se­cre­tary Mark­way­ne Mu­llin said a li­kely re­pla­ce­ment no­mi­nee had met with the pre­si­dent and was co­ming soon. Four months later, no no­mi­nee has ma­te­ria­li­zed.

“We proudly sup­port the work Ac­ting CISA Di­rec­tor Nick An­der­sen has done in his role,” a DHS spo­kes­per­son said in res­pon­se to ques­tions about kee­ping An­der­sen on board and what be­ca­me of that po­ten­tial no­mi­nee. DHS re­fe­rred Cy­berS­coop to the White House for any further com­ment, but the White House didn’t res­pond to in­qui­ries.

The ea­siest way to keep An­der­sen in the ac­ting role would be to se­lect a no­mi­nee, thus pau­sing his 210-day limit on ser­ving as ac­ting di­rec­tor, said Mark Mont­go­mery, se­nior di­rec­tor of the Foun­da­tion for De­fen­se of De­mo­cra­cies think tank’s Cen­ter on Cyber and Tech­no­logy In­no­va­tion.

But “my gut reac­tion is that there’s just no ap­pe­ti­te at the White House to say the four-let­ter ‘CISA’ to the pre­si­dent,” given his past ani­mo­sity to­ward the agency, Mont­go­mery said. “The way to keep An­der­sen in play is to no­mi­na­te so­me­body. I think that stops the clock. But I don’t even think they can get the pre­si­dent to no­mi­na­te Bugs Bunny. To me, that’s trou­bling.”…