Trump fires official for defending security of election

The Trump administration has fired the director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for defending the integrity of an election the President continues to maintain was stolen.

Christopher Krebs has been removed from his position — despite being appointed to the role by President Donald Trump himself — as part of a wave of firings amid Trump’s continued refusal to recognise the victory of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump also recently fired defence secretary Mark Esper as part of a broader shake-up of key Pentagon positions.

Under Krebs, CISA has previously issued statements dismissing claims that fraudsters could use the identities of large amounts of dead people to vote, and that the results of a count could be changed without detection.

Last week, CISA and the other members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) Executive Committee for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure also released a statement calling the 2020 election “the most secure in American history”.

According to the statement, all states with close results in the 2020 election have paper records of each vote that can be checked if necessary, and there is “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised”.

“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections,” the statement reads.

Other security measures implemented for the election include pre-election testing, state certification of voting equipment and the certification of voting equipment by the US Election Assistance Commission.

But Krebs’ name was not on the statement, with CISA represented by assistant director Bob Kolasky.

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