Chris Krebs: Trump fires top cybersecurity official who rejected his false claim election was rigged

Twitter immediately amends president’s tweet with warning

Donald Trump has fired a top cybersecurity official who had rejected the false claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

In his latest attempt to claim, contrary to all the evidence, that he was the victim of fraud and that Joe Biden was not the legitimate winner, Mr Trump said he was firing Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The president directly tied the decision on Tuesday evening to recent comments from Mr Krebs, to the effect that there was no evidence of any tampering with the election apparatus.  By contrast, Mr Trump has refused to concede the election, and is trying and fight Mr Biden's victory in the courts.

“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud - including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations,” glitches ”in the voting machines which changed. … Votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more "he wrote.

"Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency."

The president's tweet was immediately marked with a notice from Twitter, that read: "This claim about election fraud is disputed."

Mr Krebs, whose agency is part of the Department of Homeland Security, had for some time days feared he was to be axed, after he last week joined other officials to give the 2020 presidential race a clean bill of health.

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” the agency said last week in comments that were signed off on by a coalition of election security groups, including the National Association of State Election Directors.

“All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. "

While Mr Trump publicly berated Mr Krebs, the New York Times pointed out that his boss at the DHS, Chad Wolf, had praised the work of the former Microsoft executive.

Mr Krebs, 43, had used Twitter to defend the election and the work of those experts tasked with protecting it.

On Tuesday morning, he had tweeted: “ICYMI: On allegations that election systems were manipulated, 59 election security experts all agree," in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent. "# Protect2020

CNN reported that Mr Krebs had told people in recent days he did not care if he was fired by the president.