Trump fires top cybersecurity official for debunking election fraud claims

President Donald Trump has fired the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, after the agency spent weeks debunking election fraud claims on its “Rumor Control” page. Chris Krebs led the agency as its first director after Trump nominated him for the role in February 2018. 

During that time, CISA had been responsible for coordinating election security among officials in all 50 states, focusing on improvements at the local and county level. That’s included measures like installing sensors in election county networks to detect potential cyberattacks and hosting virtual rooms to share information about threats. 

The election security effort also meant fighting disinformation and debunking rumors that would often mirror the Trump administration’s comments. CISA launched its Rumor Control page on Oct. 20 as part of its ongoing effort to debunk election fraud claims, which it continues to update well after the election was called for President-elect Joe Biden. 

Trump hasn’t accepted the results of the election and continues to claim that the results were due to fraud, throwing out various theories like votes being cast by dead people and the voting tally being hacked.   

The president announced Krebs’ firing in a tweet on Tuesday.

On Twitter, Krebs responded to the news and wrote, “Honored to serve. We did it right.” 

CISA didn’t respond to a request for comment. Jack Cable, a security researcher and an election security technical advisor at CISA, said on Twitter that it was an honor to work under Krebs.

“Election security is not political,” Cable said. “Director Krebs should be commended for his nonpartisan approach to protecting democracy and ensuring a secure 2020 election.” 

The Rumor Control page has been directly contradicting many of Trump’s claims, and while Krebs hasn’t directly challenged the president’s remarks, he has debunked the election fraud hoaxes that the president…