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Donald Trump sacked the head of the federal agency who vouched for the reliability of the 2020 election and rebuffed the president’s baseless allegations of electoral fraud.
Trump fired Christopher Krebs, who served as director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), in a tweet Tuesday, claiming that Krebs “was fired” and that his recent statement defending election security was “grossly inaccurate”.
The dismissal of Krebs, a person appointed by Trump, comes as Trump refuses to recognize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and to remove senior officials seen as insufficiently loyal. He sacked Mark Esper, the defense secretary, on Nov. 9, as part of a larger reshuffle that put Trump loyalists in top positions at the Pentagon.
Krebs had indicated that he expected to be fired. Last week his agency released a statement refuting allegations of widespread electoral fraud. “The November 3 elections were the safest in American history,” the statement read. “There is no evidence that a voting system suppressed or lost votes, altered votes or was compromised in any way.”
Krebs, a former Microsoft executive, led the agency, known as Cisa, from its inception following Russian interference in the 2016 election until the November election. He received bipartisan praise as Cisa coordinated federal and local efforts to defend electoral systems against foreign or domestic interference.
Trump mentioned the Cisa Declaration in his Tweeter shoot Krebs. The president’s tweets also repeated many of the baseless allegations of electoral fraud he had made in recent weeks.
Several top Democrats were quick to condemn the president’s decision to fire Krebs.
On CNN, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said, “Chris Krebs’ federal service is just the latest casualty in President Trump’s four-year war on the truth.
Angus King, the senator from Maine who is among the candidates likely to be named director of national intelligence in the next Biden administration, called Krebs “A dedicated public servant who has helped create new cyber capabilities in the face of rapidly evolving dangers.
“By firing him for doing his job, President Trump is hurting all Americans.”
Adam Schiff, California Democratic congressman who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said Trump’s decision is “Pathetic and predictable of a president who considers the truth as his enemy”.
And Mark Warner, a Democratic Senator from Virginia and co-chair of the Senate Cyber Security Caucus, said Krebs “is an extraordinary public servant and exactly the person Americans want to protect the security of our elections.”
“It says a lot that the president chose to fire him just for telling the truth,” he said, echoing many of his fellow Democrats.
Ben Sasse, a Republican senator from Nebraska also intervened. “Chris Krebs did a really good job,” he said. “He obviously shouldn’t be fired.
Two other DHS officials – Bryan Ware, Cisa’s deputy director of international affairs, and Valerie Boyd, DHS’s deputy secretary of international affairs – were also reportedly deported last week.
Krebs tweeted from his personal account that he was “honored to serve“.
Twitter was quick to point out the tweets in which the president announced Krebs’ sacking for containing “contested” claims about the election.
Refusing to accept reality and concede the election, Trump doubled down on his conspiracy theories on voter fraud. His administration has barred Biden’s transition team from receiving briefings, but now that Krebs is no longer working in an official capacity, the incoming administration may be able to glean unclassified briefings from the former cybersecurity chief.
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