Krebs says Trump ‘fanned the flames’ of election disinformation with video

by Maggie Miller - 01/06/21 7:18 PM ET

Christopher Krebs, the nation’s former top cybersecurity official, slammed President Trump and supporters who have spread election disinformation, including Trump’s video Wednesday telling rioters who stormed the Capitol that the November election was stolen.

“We called out #disinfo repeatedly before & after the election,” Krebs, who was fired by Trump in November after pushing back against disinformation around the presidential election, said in a Twitter post. “Yet the President & his campaign/lawyers/supporters fanned the flames for their own selfish reasons culminating with today’s objections followed by his video message. WHAT DID THEY THINK WOULD HAPPEN? They own this.”

Krebs, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), was referring to a since-removed video from Trump on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube that urged supporters who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday to go home but described the 2020 presidential election as stolen.

Before he was fired by Trump, Krebs spearheaded a “rumor control” page on the agency’s website meant to push back against misinformation and disinformation around the Nov. 3 election.

CISA also put out a joint statement with state and local election officials in the days after the election describing it as the “most secure in American history.”

Trump fired Krebs in a tweet shortly after that statement was made public, calling it “highly inaccurate” and citing multiple unsubstantiated voter fraud concerns.

Several other members of CISA’s leadership were also asked to step down by the White House in the weeks after the election, leaving the nation’s key federal cybersecurity agency without any Senate-confirmed leadership.

Krebs has continued to be vocal about the security of the election, testifying to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month that “while elections are sometimes messy, this was a secure election, of that I have no doubt.”