Trump Retaliates Against Former Cybersecurity Chief

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a probe into former top cybersecurity official Chris Krebs in a move widely seen as retaliation for Krebs undercutting efforts to question the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.

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The White House on Wednesday said Trump signed a presidential memorandum instructing the heads of all federal agencies to revoke “any active security clearance” held by Krebs. The former Microsoft executive served as the first-ever director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during the Trump administration’s first term from 2018 until his firing in November 2020 through a presidential post to social media network Twitter. The order doesn’t state if Krebs holds any active security clearances.

Trump also ordered all security clearances “held by individuals at entities associated with Krebs,” including at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne where he now works, to be suspended “pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest,” it said.

Trump’s beef with Krebs appears to be personal, not factual, although the president has previously targeted individuals who failed to parrot what he states to be reality. Krebs couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. The order highlights Trump’s continuing efforts to advance false and misleading information, including trumpeting conspiracy theories pertaining to the 2020 election, oftentimes under the guise of promoting free speech or combating misinformation.

His Wednesday memo rewarms conspiracy theories dating from his first term in office pertaining to Krebs supposedly suppressing “conservative viewpoints” pertaining to “Hunter Biden’s laptop” and “the bona fide debate about COVID-19.”

The memo further accuses Krebs of having “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.”

Krebs famously tweeted in 2020 that the year’s presidential election was the most secure on record and that after extensive review by security experts, all claims of fraud “either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.” Under his direction, CISA released a statement stating that there was no evidence that “any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” Voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 received a nearly $800 million payout from Fox News after the network hyped conspiracy theories claiming Dominion equipment switched votes from Trump to Joe Biden, winner of the 2020 election.

Publicly traded SentinelOne said it will “actively cooperate” with any review of security clearances issued to its employees. “We are a cybersecurity company – our mission is to defend customers, enterprises and governments against cyberthreats by leveraging the most advanced artificial intelligence,” the Mountain View, California-based company told Information Security Media Group. “We view the White House as a crucial collaborator on that mission, and we will continue to support a strong America at a time of heightened geopolitical threats.”

Fewer than 10 SentinelOne employees currently hold security clearances, and “only where required by existing government processes and procedures to secure government systems,” the company said. “We do not expect this to materially impact our business in any way.”

Cybersecurity experts have reacted with alarm at the presidential memorandum. “Chris Krebs was doing his job at CISA,” said Daniel Kennedy, principal research analyst for the Information Security channel at S&P Global Market Intelligence, in a post to social network Mastodon. “This action weakens our nation’s ability to attract top cybersecurity talent to the positions they are needed in, in an arena, cybersecurity, where federally we are failing.”

Since assuming office on Jan. 20 for a second term, Trump has weakened CISA through attempts to fire numerous personnel and defund election security efforts (see: Trump’s Cyber Rollbacks Expose States to Ransomware Attacks).

The cuts at CISA and dismantling of federal cybersecurity initiatives that help state and local governments come despite a nonstop flurry of nation-state cyberattacks against the U.S., including alerts that Chinese hackers continue to preposition themselves across telecommunications and other critical infrastructure networks (see: Experts Warn Congress Another Salt Typhoon Attack Is Coming).

Following his government service, Krebs founded the Krebs Stamos Group with cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos, which SentinelOne acquired. Krebs now serves as the chief public policy officer at SentinelOne and as president of PinnacleOne, the company’s strategic advisory group.

The value of SentinelOne’s stock has recently outperformed many other cybersecurity firms, as markets have been buffeted by Trump’s changing plans to impose tariffs as part of his unfolding global trade war, designed at least in part to drive U.S. companies to move their manufacturing away from China (see: Stock Sell-Off: Cloudflare, Fortinet, SailPoint Hardest Hit).

Conspiracy theories over the 2020 election continue to play out in other venues. This week, a Wisconsin lawyer hired by Republicans to lead a 2020 election probe agreed to suspend his law license for three years after stating that multiple misconduct allegations against him had “an adequate factual basis.”

The state’s Office of Lawyer Regulation last November accused Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice hired by Republicans, of various types of misconduct, including numerous errors and outbursts in court, and meeting with conspiracy theorists, during his seven-month probe in the swing state, which cost taxpayers $2.3 million. The state’s Supreme Court may yet choose to permanently revoke his license, although such a move would be rare, reported the Associated Press.