The role, known officially as the national cyber director, remains unfilled two months into Joe Biden’s presidency despite a legal mandate that it be occupied. Congress had ordered the creation of the post in a defense bill it enacted late last year over then-President Donald Trump’s veto. And they expected the Biden White House to act quickly on it.

But nearly a dozen current and former officials familiar with the deliberations say that it has been the casualty of classic Washington dramas: executive branch officials wary of legislators meddling in their business and government bureaucrats trying to fend off potential colleagues from encroaching on their perceived portfolios…

“They’re taking way too long, and while conducting this review they have not nominated someone,” said Mark Montgomery, a senior adviser to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and senior fellow at Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “So they are very much slowing down the development of the NCD office.”