President Donald Trump shocked conservatives and liberals alike on Wednesday after he ordered an investigation into his former cybersecurity appointee Chris Krebs for “falsely and baselessly” denying “that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.”
In a memo on Wednesday evening, Trump revoked Krebs’ security clearances and ordered “a review of Krebs’ activities as a government employee, including his leadership of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).”
As justification for the review, Trump accused Krebsa of being a “significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his government authority,” and claimed he – among other things – “promoted the censorship of election information, including known risks associated with certain voting practices, and falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.”
Trump’s memo received backlash on Wednesday from social media users who called the review “Stalinesque” and pointed out that it was Trump who appointed Krebs in the first place.
“This is
“Outrageous,” weighed in the editor of The Dispatch, Stephen Hayes. “Trump is targeting by name a civil servant widely respected by both Republicans and Democrats. And he’s doing so in service of his false claims – thoroughly and repeatedly debunked – that he won the 2020 election. This won’t stop here.”
Trump also received criticism from his former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, who resigned from her position following the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.
“Before the election, I warned repeatedly that Trump would go after those he saw as political enemies,” she wrote. “Now he’s targeting a public servant who simply did his job and told the truth about the 2020 election being secure because it doesn’t fit with his lies.”
Trump impeachment testifier Alexander Vindman had more explicit words for the president.