[guest post by Dana]

Of course, he did. I MEAN, WHAT CHOICE DID HE HAVE???!!!

Christopher Krebs, who led the federal government’s election cybersecurity efforts, has been fired by President Donald Trump.

Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, had recently butted heads with the White House over his agency’s Rumor Control blog, which rebuts a list of false claims about election fraud and hacking — many of which have been touted as real by Trump or his lawyers after he lost the election this month.

Trump tweeted Tuesday night that Krebs had put out a statement concerning the election that was “highly inaccurate,” apparently a reference to a joint statement Thursday from CISA, the Election Assistance Commission and groups that represent the chief election officers in every state. The statement read, in part, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

…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.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020

And of course, in Trump’s mind there were plenty of enemies to blame:

The only thing secure about our 2020 Election was that it was virtually impenetrable by foreign powers. On that, the Trump Administration takes great credit. Unfortunately, the Radical Left Democrats, Dominion, and others, were perhaps more successful!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020

Amusingly, Krebs, who told others that he expected to be fired for telling the truth, remained wittily unconcerned about Trump’s reaction:

Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomrorow. #Protect2020

— Chris Krebs (@C_C_Krebs) November 18, 2020

As a reminder:

Trump appointed Krebs, a former policy director at Microsoft, director of what is now CISA in 2017, in the wake of Russia’s 2016 election interference campaign and the outgoing Obama administration’s declaration that elections systems would become critical infrastructure.

So Trump appoints a qualified person for a job. Said employee successfully completes the task before him. The results, however, do not favor Trump. The employee is then publicly bad-mouthed by the President who is mad that the results don’t favor him. The President then fires the employee. For doing his job. Objectively. And successfully.

This is how it goes in Trump’s world: a decent sort gets hired to do a job, they stand up for the truth, no matter who it hurts. They get thrown under the bus, publicly shamed, and are then terminated. This is Trump’s exclusive recipe for making America great again…

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I would like to see President Biden re-hire folks like Krebs, or Alexander Vindman and his brother, who were fired by Trump for speaking truths Trump did not want spoken.

[guest post by Dana]

President-elect Joe Biden wants to move on and let his Justice Dept. make any determinations about future criminal investigations into the former President Trump:

President-elect Joe Biden has privately told advisers that he doesn’t want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor, according to five people familiar with the discussions, despite pressure from some Democrats who want inquiries into President Donald Trump, his policies and members of his administration.

Biden has raised concerns that investigations would further divide a country he is trying to unite and risk making every day of his presidency about Trump, said the sources, who spoke on background to offer details of private conversations.

They said he has specifically told advisers that he is wary of federal tax investigations of Trump or of challenging any orders Trump may issue granting immunity to members of his staff before he leaves office. One adviser said Biden has made it clear that he “just wants to move on.”

Another Biden adviser said, “He’s going to be more oriented toward fixing the problems and moving forward than prosecuting them.”

Refreshingly, we are being told that President Biden’s Justice Dept. will operate independently from the Biden and that he will not be participating in advising or instructing the Justice Department on what to investigate or what not to investigate. Whether Biden actually remains out of the loop, so to speak, remains to be seen. But for now, it sounds good:

Biden wants his Justice Department to function independently from the White House, aides said, and Biden isn’t going to tell federal law enforcement officials whom or what to investigate or not to investigate.

“His overarching view is that we need to move the country forward,” an adviser said. “But the most important thing on this is that he will not interfere with his Justice Department and not politicize his Justice Department.”

…

“He can set a tone about what he thinks should be done,” a Biden adviser said. But, the adviser said, “he’s not going to be a president who directs the Justice Department one way or the other.”

This might be the prudent path to take when considering how to prosecute the former President Trump:

But any prosecution of Trump, no matter how fair, will draw criticism from Trump’s supporters in an already-divided nation. Even non-partisan observers have reason to be concerned by the spectacle of the administration of a new president prosecuting the president who just left office. It’s essential for any stable democracy that elected leaders don’t use their new powers to punish their opponents after they’ve lost. No president has ever done it.

So Biden needs to pursue justice when it comes to Trump—but he also needs to ensure that any prosecutorial decisions about Trump are made in a manner that restores public faith in the Justice Department, rather than making it seem, as Trump has, like just another political arm of the White House…Biden has promised to stay out of any prosecutorial decision, but that won’t be enough.

Biden will have one tool, however, that allows him to pursue justice while also ensuring that the process doesn’t appear to be tainted by politics. That tool is the special counsel—a prosecutor appointed not by Biden, but by his attorney general, who has a measure of independence from the administration. The special counsel should be a career prosecutor who has no connection to Biden or his team, and the Attorney General should publicly state in advance that he or she does not intend to place any restrictions on the special counsel and will follow his or her recommendation.

Surprisingly, President Trump has not tweeted nor responded to any conversation about future prosecutions today…

–Dana