Trump fires top cybersecurity official who debunked voter fraud claims

Christopher Krebs.
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

President Trump tweeted on Tuesday evening that he has fired Christopher Krebs, the head of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who has been debunking conspiracy theories about voter fraud since Election Day.

Trump has been spreading multiple baseless claims about the election, including that it was "rigged" by Democrats and there was mass voting by dead people. In his tweet about Krebs, Trump claimed that it was "inaccurate" for Krebs to say the election was secure, and "therefore, effective immediately," Krebs has been terminated. Last week, Krebs told people close to him that due to his efforts to debunk disinformation, he believed he would soon be fired, Reuters reports.

Last week, top cybersecurity officials with the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council released a joint statement saying there is "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised." In fact, they declared, the 2020 presidential election was "the most secure in American history."

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.