Pelosi slams Trump for ‘undermining democracy’ by firing top election security official

‘The President has fired Director Krebs for speaking truth to power and rejecting Trump’s constant campaign of election falsehoods’

Donald Trump’s decision to fire a top election security official after he defended the results of the 2020 US election against the president’s false conspiracy theories has been met with swift bipartisan backlash by lawmakers.

Chris Krebs, head of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, said he was “honored to serve” in response to the president’s Twitter firing, amid an outpouring of support on Capitol Hill.

He was fired after publicly rejecting Mr Trump’s false claims that voting systems across the country had been manipulated to “steal votes,” instead insisting in an official statement via the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”

The move was denounced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D—CA), who said in a statement: “Director Krebs is a deeply respected cybersecurity expert who worked diligently to safeguard our elections, support state and local election officials and dispel dangerous misinformation.  Yet, instead of rewarding this patriotic service, the President has fired Director Krebs for speaking truth to power and rejecting Trump’s constant campaign of election falsehoods.”

“The President’s insistence on distracting and dividing the country by denying his defeat in the election undermines our democracy,” she added. “Instead of stooping to this dangerous and shameful charade, Trump needs to get serious about crushing the accelerating pandemic that has killed nearly 250,000 Americans, infected over 11 million people in our country and devastated the livelihoods of tens of millions more.”

A wave of Democratic lawmakers also issued public statements rejecting Mr Trump’s firing, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (D—Ma), who said Mr Krebs “got fired because he did his job to protect our elections and stood up to Trump's conspiracy theories."

But the dismissal was also rebuked by some Republicans, including Senator Ben Sasse (R—Ne), who said the election security official “did a really good job” and added: “He obviously should not be fired.”

Before his abrupt firing, Mr Krebs served as the director of the agency since 2018 and led a campaign to counter the president’s false allegations of mass voter fraud. In the agency’s statement on the election results, Mr Krebs wrote in boldface: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

Reports indicated his firing had been expected due to the public opposition towards the president’s unfounded claims.

“It speaks volumes that the president chose to fire him simply for telling the truth,” Senator Mark Warner (D—VA), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement, calling Mr Krebs “an extraordinary public servant and exactly the person Americans want protecting the security of our elections.”

Mr Trump slammed Mr Krebs in a tweet that led to his dismissal, writing: “The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud.”

He added: “Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

As with many recent tweets the president has posted on social media, the statement contained numerous falsities and was quickly flagged by the platform for containing claims about the election that were disputed.

Mr Trump has continued to promote unfounded, debunked and otherwise false claims about the election. Law firms representing his campaign have meanwhile pulled out of cases in key states as federal judges deem a slew of legal changes to the electoral process to be frivolous and unsubstantiated. And a growing pool of analysis and research showed the national vote had been done in a safe and secure way that did not lead to mass voter fraud.