Top cybersecurity official fired by Trump says presidential vote count was legit and Twitter dismissal was ‘not how I wanted to go out’
The country’s top cybersecurity official who was fired by President Trump for publicly affirming his election defeat to President-elect Joe Biden said he wasn’t totally blindsided by his sudden Twitter dismissal.
“I don’t know if I was necessarily surprised,” said Chris Krebs, ex-director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, in an interview airing Sunday night on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
“It’s not how I wanted to go out. I think ... the thing that upsets me the most is I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my team. And I’d worked with them for 3 1/2 years, in the trenches. Building an agency, putting CISA on the national map. I loved that team. And I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, so that’s what I’m most upset about,” he said.
Trump canned Krebs in a Nov. 17 tweet filled with claims about the election in which he was defeated by Biden in both the popular and electoral votes.
“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,” the president asserted.
Krebs, asked if he remembered the next line in the tweet, absolutely did.
“Oh, I was ‘terminated’?’” he replied “Yes, I recall that.”
Krebs, in his first interview since the firing, said he stands by the statement that led to his abrupt dismissal: “The Nov. 3 election was the most secure in American history.”
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