On Tuesday, Donald Trump fired a top official at the Department of Homeland Security who had made it a point to publicly dismiss some of the baseless conspiracy theories that continue to be peddled as an explanation for why the president lost.
The director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, was dismissed by Trump, who justified the firing in a set of tweets, both of which were slapped with a label from Twitter saying "This claim about election fraud is disputed." Those tweets say that Krebs' "recent statement" on the presidential election's security "was highly inaccurate" (more on that statement in a sec), followed by a listing of grievances.
Recently, Krebs set up a website deemed "Rumor Control," which sought to correct misinformation being spread via conspiracy theories about the election, including some theories that were bandied by Trump. Earlier on Tuesday, Krebs also tweeted that 59 "election security experts" reached a consensus that allegations regarding manipulated election systems rigging the vote count were either substance-less, or not feasible:
Kreb's dismissal also follows a declaration by DHS that stated the 2020 election to be the most secure in the history of the U.S.
"There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," the agency said on Thursday in a joint assessment that teamed them with a number of election security groups. "All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors."
Krebs responded to the news of his firing on Twitter, writing, "Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomrorow. #Protect2020."
Krebs joined DHS in March 2017. He served as a senior adviser on cybersecurity and infrastructure protection prior to rising to the role he had up until a few hours ago. He was first given that now-vacant-gig in 2018.
According to sources who spoke to POLITICO, Krebs had relayed his own expectation that he'd be fired as early as this past week.
Elected officials, including Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, and others took to social media to express their disapproval at the firing of Krebs.
