Outgoing US President Donald Trump has fired the nation’s top cybersecurity official, whose agency has called the 2020 presidential election “the most secure in American history.”
Christopher Krebs, a Trump appointee, served as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) until he was fired via a Trump tweet on Tuesday.
Trump has refused to recognize Biden as the next president and is not providing the former vice president’s team access to government resources for a peaceful transfer of power.
“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 wrote on Twitter. “Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”
CISA released a statement Thursday to defend the integrity of the November 3 election in the face of Trump’s multiple lawsuits to overturn the outcome.
“When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary,” the statement read. “This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
The Republican president called the statement "highly inaccurate,” further alleging that, “there were massive improprieties and fraud - including dead people voting.”
The Trump team is reportedly in possession of no solid evidence of voter fraud, strong enough to give him a second term; however, the president and his allies have vowed to continue fighting until Biden’s inauguration day on January 20.