Trump Fires Senior Cybersecurity Official Who Disputed His Outlandish Claims About Election Fraud

On Tuesday night, Trump fired Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the most senior cybersecurity official responsible for securing the presidential election. Krebs’ firing was hardly a shock, as ever since the election he has been vocal in rebutting many of Trump’s inaccurate claims about election fraud—both in his capacity as the director of CISA through the agency’s “Rumor Control” website, and on his own Twitter feed.

Unsurprisingly, the announcement of Krebs’ firing came via Trump’s Twitter account, wrapped up in a bunch of the very same wholly unsubstantiated and absurd claims about fictional voter fraud that Krebs had been consistently disputing.

“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud – including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, “glitches” in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

Although much of Krebs’s work surrounding election security has seemingly managed to fly under Trump’s radar since he was appointed to CISA in 2018, many think the last straw was a statement released on November 12 by CISA and a group including secretaries of state, election directors, and election equipment vendors, which asserted that “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” They continued on to say that “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

One can imagine how that rational and clear statement could set off a man who is so desperate not to have lost the presidential election that he’s leaning on easily debunked conspiracy theories like “dead people were the deciding votes.” But the last two lines of the short statement are by far the most delicious.

“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too. When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.”

Now THAT’S a kicker.