Chris Krebs, who led the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm and was fired by President Trump last week after publicly debunking the sitting president’s conspiracy theories challenging the legitimacy of the election process, reiterated that he was not “necessarily surprised” about getting the axe, during an interview set to air on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday.
Krebs led the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency since 2018 and earned bipartisan praise from election officials for how his agency has helped them protect their election infrastructure. The former DHS official rose to prominence as he vehemently pushed back at falsehoods spread by Trump and his orbit claiming that election infrastructure had been manipulated.
Krebs told Reuters days before his ouster that he had expected that he would be terminated, citing the White House’s unsuccessful effort to get his agency to take down or edit the “Rumor Control” webpage it had launched to address the false claims.
In a preview of his first interview since his ouster set to air on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Krebs maintained that the election process was the most secure in history and that his public firing by Trump was “not how I wanted to go out.”
When asked about his agency’s statement calling the 2020 election the “most secure in American history” that refuted claims that there had been “deleted or lost votes, changed votes,” Krebs said that he “stands by that.”
Krebs was then asked about Trump’s tweet announcing his firing and whether he was surprised by his ouster.
Krebs replied that he doesn’t know if he was “necessarily surprised,” but “it’s not how I wanted to go out.”
Krebs revealed what actually upset him most upon Trump firing him.
“The thing that upsets me the most about that is I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my team. And I’d worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches,’ Krebs said. ‘Building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team. And I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, so that’s what I’m most upset about.”
Watch Krebs’ remarks below:
See the interview with the man President Trump ousted after he said the election was secure, Sunday night on 60 Minutes. https://t.co/qB67VHwrMR pic.twitter.com/bTQjgj3MGU
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 27, 2020
