Biden’s transition: Donald Trump fires Chris Krebs, head of the election security agency

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, today fired the director of the federal agency that endorsed the reliability of the 2020 elections.

Trump fired Christopher Krebs in a tweet, saying that his recent statement defending election security was “very inaccurate.”

The firing of Krebs, appointed by Trump and director of the Infrastructure Security and Cybersecurity Agency, comes as Trump refuses to acknowledge the victory of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden and removes high-level officials deemed insufficiently loyal.

He fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper on November 9, as part of a broader shakeup that put Trump loyalists in high-level positions in the Pentagon.

Krebs, a former Microsoft executive, led the agency, known as CISA, from its inception in the wake of Russian interference in the 2016 election until the November election.

It earned praise from both parties as CISA coordinated federal state and local efforts to defend electoral systems from domestic or foreign interference.

In recent days, Krebs has repeatedly rejected false claims that the elections were tainted. Earlier today, he tweeted a report citing 59 election security experts and saying that there is no credible evidence of computer fraud in the 2020 election result.

Trump responded on Twitter later that day. He reiterated the unsubstantiated claims about the vote and wrote “with immediate effect, Chris Krebs has been fired as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

Officials at CISA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately comment.

Krebs kept a low profile even as he expressed his confidence before the November vote and later dropped allegations that the count was tainted by fraud.

At times, he appeared to be outright repudiating Trump, a surprising move by a component of DHS, an agency that has come under fire for seeming too allied with the president’s political goals.

CISA issued statements dismissing claims that large numbers of people killed could vote or that someone could change the results without being detected.

It also distributed a statement from a coalition of federal and state officials that concluded that there was no evidence that the votes were compromised or altered in the November 3 election and that the vote was the safest in US history.

Krebs avoided direct criticism of the president and tried to stay above the political fray, even as he worked to counter misinformation coming from the president and his supporters. “It is not our job to verify the facts of the president,” he said in a briefing with journalists on the eve of the elections.

CISA works with state and local officials running US elections, as well as private companies that supply voting equipment to address cybersecurity and other threats while monitoring voting and tabulation from a control room at its headquarters near Washington. It also works with industry and utilities to protect the country’s industrial base and power grid from threats.

The agency enjoys a good reputation among its primary constituency, state and local election officials who rely on its advice and services at a time of near-constant cyber attack, as well as on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers recently proposed an increase in their budget from about US $ 2 billion.

Amid recent reports that Krebs feared he would be fired, Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he was concerned and texted the principal asking if he was okay. The answer was, in effect, “for now,” said the Mississippi Democrat.

“It’s a shame someone with their talents suddenly muzzles,” Thompson said. “I have not seen a partisan bone in his body. He has been a consummate professional.”

Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat who focuses on cybersecurity issues, had asked his fellow Republicans to defend him before he could be removed from office.

“Chris Krebs and CISA have done very well under his leadership because he and his team have kept their heads down and done their assigned work and have not been caught up in partisan politics,” Langevin said.

The agency came off a rocky start. Just before President Barack Obama left office, the United States designated electoral systems as critical national security infrastructure, such as dams or power plants, as a result of Russian interference, which included penetration of state electoral systems and misinformation. massive.

Some state and Republican election officials, who suspected federal intrusion into their territory, opposed the appointment. The National Association of Secretaries of State passed a resolution opposing the measure in February 2017. But the Trump administration supported the designation, and skeptical state officials eventually welcomed the help.

-AP