Donald Trump has fired the government’s top election security official, who rejected the president’s unsubstantiated claims of “massive” fraud in th
Trump announced on Twitter the termination “effective immediately” of Chris Krebs, who leads the agency that jointly declared “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”
Trump, who refuses to acknowledge that he lost his bid for re-election to Democrat Biden, has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the voting and count were replete with fraud.
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,” Trump wrote in a tweet.
Krebs, who reportedly told friends last week he expected to be removed, appeared to confirm it in a tweet on his personal account.
“Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomorrow,” he wrote.
Krebs was in charge of fending off possible foreign and domestic hacker intrusions into myriad voting machines, sorting and counting machines, databases and other systems that states and localities rely on to tally ballots.
Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Krebs and his team had worked diligently to safeguard our elections.
“Instead of rewarding this great service, President Trump is retaliating against Director Krebs and other officials who did their duty,” he said in a statement.
Republican Senator Ben Sasse wrote: “Chris Krebs did a really good job — as state election officials all across the nation will tell you — and he obviously should not be fired.”
