PeterS

There is no surprise here, Christopher Krebs had predicted he would be fired when he said “The November 3rd e******n was the most secure in American history" all while his boss was claiming the only reason he lost was because of widespread v***r f***d...blah, blah, blah. Now Trump, of course, was just blowing smoke out his ass because he has the emotional development of a three-year-old and he can't face the fact that he lost an e******n. The only mistake Krebs made was that he was one of the few people who worked for Trump who wouldn't kiss his ass.

So a big thumbs up to Krebs and thanks for delivering the most secure e******n in our history!

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/17/trump-fires-dhs-cybersecurity-chief-who-led-e******n-defense-437174

President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired Christopher Krebs, the U.S. government’s top cybersecurity official, after he spent weeks contradicting the e******n-related conspiracy theories that Trump and his allies have promoted to deny the legitimacy of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, oversaw the defense of the 2018 and 2020 e******ns, as well as the protection of federal computer networks and critical infrastructure facilities such as hospitals and power plants.

In tweets posted Tuesday evening, Trump claimed that a recent statement issued by Krebs' agency and several partners, which reassured Americans that the 2020 e******n had been conducted securely, "was highly inaccurate."

"There were massive improprieties and fraud — including dead people v****g, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, 'glitches' in the v****g machines which changed ... v**es from Trump to Biden, late v****g, and many more," Trump tweeted, though those claims are false. "Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated."

Krebs, one of the few Trump appointees with nearly universal bipartisan support, spent years navigating his new agency through DHS’s leadership turmoil and the administration’s political controversies. At the same time, he built relationships with fellow officials and private security experts to reform and promote the government’s cyber mission.

After rising to become the United States' de-facto cyber czar in 2018, he became a familiar presence at security conferences, where he discussed threats such as the ransomware epidemic and the risks of Chinese telecom companies such as Huawei. In an administration that constantly defied democratic norms, Krebs became the public face of the government’s e******n security efforts, highlighting the collaboration between national security officials and e******n supervisors.

But Krebs’ commitment to debunking misinformation about the p**********l e******n finally proved too much for the White House, which pushed him out as part of a government-wide purge that has also hit the top ranks of the Pentagon.

Democratic lawmakers, e******n supervisors, former officials and cybersecurity professionals reacted with dismay to news of Krebs' firing, as did Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse.

“President Trump is retaliating against Director Krebs and other officials who did their duty,” House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “It’s pathetic, but sadly predictable that upholding and protecting our democratic processes would be cause for firing.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi commended Krebs for "speaking t***h to power and rejecting Trump’s constant campaign of e******n falsehoods." She said his firing was part of Trump's "dangerous and shameful charade."

Sasse offered one of the few statements from a Republican lawmaker or e******n supervisor that explicitly criticized Trump. “Chris Krebs did a really good job — as state e******n officials all across the nation will tell you — and he obviously should not be fired," he said.

Krebs “is the only person I can think of who is leaving this administration with his reputation not just intact but, appropriately, burnished,” tweeted Suzanne Spaulding, who preceded Krebs as head of DHS’s cybersecurity mission during the Obama administration. “Thank you for picking up the baton 4 yrs ago and achieving so much progress for the org and mission!”

Former Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr (R-N.C.) praised Krebs as "a dedicated public servant who has done a remarkable job during a challenging time," but he did not criticize Trump for firing Krebs.

The Biden campaign also praised Krebs, linking his firing to Trump's refusal to accept the president-elect's victory.

"Chris Krebs should be commended for his service in protecting our e******ns, not fired for telling the t***h," said Biden spokesperson Michael Gwin, who added that "Trump's embarrassing refusal to accept [his loss] lays bare how baseless and desperate his flailing is."

Shortly after Trump fired him, Krebs championed his former agency's work on his personal Twitter account. "Honored to serve," he said. "We did it right."

CISA Deputy Director Matthew Travis was next in line to lead the agency, but Travis is resigning soon, a person familiar with the matter told POLITICO late Tuesday. Leadership of CISA would fall to its executive director, Brandon Wales, a career employee whom Trump cannot fire.

Days before Trump fired Krebs, White House officials vented their displeasure with Krebs to the New York Post, claiming CISA was a haven for Trump critics and a wellspring of resistance to his administration. The Post reported that acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf was resisting Trump's instructions to fire Krebs, even though only Trump, not Wolf, had the power to do so.

Wolf publicly praised Krebs on E******n Day and thanked him for his efforts to protect U.S. e******ns. He refrained from antagonizing Krebs because he wanted the Senate to confirm him to the secretary post, but he still encouraged Krebs to tone down his debunkings of e******n misinformation to avoid angering Trump, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. Krebs said that he wouldn't be doing his job if he did that, according to this person.

The White House did not give CISA any warning before Trump fired Krebs, according to one agency official, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.

Even so, said the CISA official, Krebs' departure won't deter the agency from its mission.

“It’s unfortunate, but we’re going to keep going," the official said. “We’re going to go to work tomorrow. We’re going to keep doing the same things.”

A focus on e******n security

Krebs’ most significant legacy is the nation’s increasingly robust e******n infrastructure. The technology and processes that power U.S. e******ns are far more secure than they were in 2016, when Russian hackers thrust the creaking machinery of American democracy into the spotlight. But getting to this point was an uphill battle at times.

“The success of the 2020 General E******n — in the face of disinformation campaigns and cyber threats from foreign adversaries — is owed in large part to CISA under Chris Krebs’ leadership,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement. He called Krebs “an accessible, reliable partner for e******ns officials across the country, and across party lines."

The Obama administration’s belated approach to engaging e******n supervisors in 2016 left state and local officials skeptical of, or even hostile to, help from Washington. Improving this relationship couldn’t have been more important, as many states maintained insecure v***r r**********n databases and many counties used electronic v****g machines that lacked the paper trails necessary for reliable audits.

Krebs and his team launched a charm offensive to dispel rumors about federal takeovers. They pushed states to adopt paper b****ts and post-e******n audits, which many began doing after Congress approved hundreds of millions of dollars in e******n security grants. CISA also offered states free cybersecurity services, including penetration testing, phishing simulations, vulnerability scanning and resilience assessments. All 50 states and many local jurisdictions joined a CISA-funded information sharing group and installed intrusion-detection sensors that help the agency analyze hackers’ activities.

Under Krebs, CISA paid particular attention to small local jurisdictions that often lacked any dedicated IT staff, launching a “Last Mile Initiative” in 2018 that helped states furnish custom c***t sheets for their county supervisors. Krebs also launched a V***r R**********n Database Ransomware Initiative to help officials protect these key systems from extortion-focused malware.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who worked with Krebs as the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, which oversees federal e******ns, called his firing "a gut punch to our democracy."

"He has been t***hful and straightforward with the American people about the threats to our democracy," she said in a statement. "We need more people like Director Krebs working in government, and it is wrong that he was fired."

Krebs also worked to improve relationships with the companies that sell e******n technology such as v****g machines, electronic poll books and results-reporting websites. For years, these largely unregulated vendors have scorned security researchers’ attempts to study their products, used lawsuits to maintain quasi-monopolies and in some cases misled customers about the security of their products. Krebs encouraged the companies to mend fences with researchers and improve security practices.

Over time, these efforts paid off. CISA persuaded several v****g-machine manufacturers to let the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory test their products for vulnerabilities. In 2019, Krebs said such cooperation would have been “unheard of” two years earlier. In addition, all three major v****g machine makers now operate vulnerability disclosure programs. While researchers and activists still have complaints, many of them acknowledge that the industry is trying to improve.

Kreb also encouraged companies such as Google and Microsoft to offer free support to campaigns and e******n officials, resulting in the increased adoption of techniques such as multi-factor authentication. In the final phase of the 2020 e******n, CISA launched a “Rumor Control” website to debunk e******n-related misinformation and partnered with other agencies to encourage trust in the system and correct v***l falsehoods. Krebs argued that false alarms and reduced v**er confidence could do far more damage than an actual cyberattack.

Full plate of other threats

The c****av***s p******c offered another stress test of CISA’s partnerships with other agencies and the private sector. CISA offered cybersecurity help to health-care organizations developing v*****es as part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” initiative. The agency also worked with its British counterpart to warn about hackers exploiting the p******c, and it partnered with the FBI to warn that Chinese hackers were targeting v***s researchers.

PeterS

So what happened to drain the swamp? Isn't firing someone for doing the job they are supposed to be doing something a swamp creature would do?

woodguru

Trump just turned Krebs into a weapon to be used against him, Biden will be all over hiring him...you can fire a civil servant but without cause another agency will always pick up good people. Kreb's value to Biden as far as continuity of the department he ran and insider knowledge about it is invaluable.

woodguru

Good people can't work for horrible managers, they get hired for their expertise not to lick trump's butt

Radiance3

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Great, he needs to be fired. I was hoping for that. DHS chief is a t*****r aligning with CIA in the dismantling our our e*******l process. Also connected with worldwide schemes on our e*******l process. . In 2018, president Trump had issued executive order prohibiting the interference of foreign countries . In addition to that, our national security are at stake.