CISA Director Chris Krebs, one of the few Trump administration officials with widespread bipartisan credibility, is reportedly telling people that he expects to be fired by the White House.
Krebs has led election security efforts through 2018 and 2020.
It's hard to overstate the impact that Krebs has had on the government's cybersecurity work over the past several years.
He's been able to steer his agency around the chaos and get things done with external partners who are repulsed by the rest of the Trump administration.
The Trump White House has essentially ignored CISA since it was created in 2018, but now that appears to be changing.
@Bing_Chris, who broke this story, also reported that today's resignation of one of Krebs' top deputies came under White House pressure: reuters.com/article/us-usa…
The timing of this news suggests that Trump may have finally discovered that CISA, and Krebs specifically, have been debunking the election misinformation that Republicans have embraced. politico.com/news/2020/11/1…
Krebs is speaking now during a DHS cyber advisory committee meeting. Obviously he's not going to address this, but just wanted to mention it. He's not out yet.
White House officials have asked CISA to remove or change fact-checks posted on the agency's Rumor Control website, and the agency has refused, per @Bing_Chris and @josephmenn's reporting. reuters.com/article/idUSKB…
Krebs just said this during an ongoing DHS National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee meeting:
"While our nation’s highest-profile election took place last week, our mission’s going to continue: to defend our democracy..."
Krebs has always had to walk a strange tightrope, exhorting people to pay attention to Russian hacking and resist disinformation in ways that unavoidably amounted to implicit rebukes of Trump.
Every time we've asked him about this, he's carefully ducked the question.
Latest tidbit from Reuters: the White House was especially angry at CISA for debunking the "Hammer and Scorecard" conspiracy theory.
Krebs has been particularly vocal in recent days about that one being false.
I should say that I've heard from several sources that Reuters' scoop is correct and Krebs expects to be fired.
Rumor Control isn't the only reason, one source said. White House personnel office has wanted to fire Krebs for a while. "They’ve considered removing him before."
FWIW there is no indication that Krebs has been fired yet. My understanding is that he hasn't been, but I'm working to get more information. Seems like this person misread the reporting.
From a former Trump transition official: Krebs "put his head down ... and did the country a tremendous service ... It’s a shame if some inexperienced staffers in the White House blinded by MAGA politics don’t see it that way."
.@C_Painter told me that Krebs "has been a great leader of DHS’ cyber programs and has been particularly effective in fighting election interference ... Firing him now makes no sense and just makes our response weaker."
From Obama WH cyber coordinator @CyAlliancePrez: "Firing Chris Krebs at this point makes no sense. ... It potentially opens a window that adversaries could take advantage of."
"Chris Krebs is the Director of CISA," agency spokesperson Sara Sendek tells me.
"Republican lawmakers have praised Krebs’ work on cybersecurity and election security in the past. [Democratic Rep. Jim] Langevin called on them to speak up. Multiple Republican lawmakers’ offices did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday."
More new info from our updated story about Krebs possibly being fired by the WH:
He and his deputy can be fired at will, but he created the 3rd-ranking career position of exec director to deal with a situation like this, a U.S. official tells me.
The FBI is investigating robocalls falsely telling people in several states that they can vote tomorrow if lines today are too long, a senior CISA official told reporters on a briefing call. #ElectionDay
The federal government is not aware of any election technology issues beyond the ones that have been publicly reported, a senior CISA official says.
“What we’ve shared and what’s out there is pretty much the body of knowledge" so far.
1️⃣ Don't panic about the election technology glitches we're seeing.
A malfunction "may slow things down," Krebs told me, and "lines may get a little bit longer," but "that's part of the ‘keep calm, vote on’ [idea] — we want some patience out there."
2️⃣ Election officials are much better prepared for cyber threats than they were in 2016.
"Across the board, we've seen behaviors improve," Krebs said, due in part to better fed/state/local/private-sector coordination.
@boblord The DNC, you may remember, played an unfortunate starring role in the cyber meltdown that was 2016.
Four years later, w/ the experience that Lord brings from top security roles at Yahoo and Twitter, the committee has made major improvements & thinks it's in a much better place.
Lord's team has trained DNC employees to incorporate security into everything they do.
At the committee, just like his former employers Yahoo & Twitter, people want to move fast, and it's his job to "make sure that somebody is curating and managing [tech] for the long haul."
The all-ballot-marking-devices setup in the perennially troubled and unexpectedly competitive state of Georgia creates the risk of widespread technical malfunctions, as happened in June.
These problems will be temporary, but they could sow chaos and still depress turnout.
In all-important Pennsylvania, which replaced its paperless machines after '18, some counties have opted for a more convenient but riskier voting-machine configuration.
Not only does this "tabulator mode" add risk, but it could confuse voters, stoking more fears.