The head of a U.S. cyber security agency has told associates he expects to be fired after angering the White House by debunking claims of election fraud, Reuters reported.
Christopher Krebs, the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), was commended by both Democrats and Republicans for his handling of the election, according to Reuters.
Top U.S. cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs, who worked on securing #Election2020 from hackers, has told associates he expects to be fired by the White House for pushing back against disinformation about the election https://t.co/X5g53UMCiU pic.twitter.com/1PNUCqv1Do
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 13, 2020
However, the White House was displeased with CISA’s “Rumor Control” website, which debunks misinformation surrounding the election, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters. CISA officials had decided not to delete accurate information following White House requests for content to be edited or removed. Among the claims was that Democrats are behind an election fraud scheme.
President Donald Trump has yet to concede the election amid several lawsuits brought by his campaign and ongoing state recounts.
The White House was also angry about a CISA post on the website that rejected a conspiracy theory that falsely claimed a supercomputer and software program called “Hammer” and “Scorecard” were used to steal votes nationally. Krebs, election security officials and former U.S. officials say no such system exists, according to Reuters.
A group of CISA members and election officials countered Trump’s claims of voter fraud in a statement Thursday. “Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result,” the statement said. (RELATED: Cybersecurity And Infrastructure Security Agency Calls 2020 Election ‘Most Secure In American History’)
“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
Krebs has also retweeted experts in election law and security who affirmed the security of the election.
To my knowledge (and this is my field of expertise), no serious evidence has yet been found or presented that suggests that the 2020 election outcome in any state has been altered through technical exploitation. Period.
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) November 12, 2020
n fact, advances in election security over the last decade, such as risk limiting audits, have made it harder than ever to actually exploit software flaws. We still have much work to do, but claiming an election was rigged through software flaws requires very compelling evidence.
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) November 12, 2020
Please don’t retweet wild and baseless claims about voting machines, even if they’re made by the president. These fantasies have been debunked many times, including by @DHSgov @CISAgov on this excellent site/resource, Rumor Control.https://t.co/XUcOkrQUf6
— David Becker (@beckerdavidj) November 12, 2020
Bryan Ware, Assistant Director for Cybersecurity at CISA, resigned Thursday. Ware was reportedly asked to resign by the White House, an official told Reuters.
Ware’s resignation follows a deluge of other resignations of national security posts.
Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Esper’s chief of staff, top Pentagon policy official Mark Tomb and other senior officials, after rumors that Trump planned to fire Esper after the election, though Esper said it was his plan to resign regardless of the election outcome, according to Time Magazine.