Trump Fires Head Of Election Cyber Security for Doing His Job
[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.