Former CISA Chief Chris Krebs Targetted By Trump Executive Order

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that targets a former US official who oversaw the cyber defences of America during Trump’s first administration.

CNBC reported that Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), as well as any entities he is associated with, has been targetted by Trump’s executive order signed last week.

Trump’s executive order resulted in Chris Krebs announcing this week his resignation “with a heavy heart” as SentinelOne’s chief intelligence and public policy officer.

Krebs had worked at SentinelOne since late 2023, when the company acquired his consulting firm.

Trump’s vendetta

CNBC noted that Krebs had said the choice to resign was his alone, but his swift departure is the latest example of the effect Trump is having on the private sector when it comes to pressuring people and institutions that he personally dislikes.

So what exactly had Krebs done to earn the ire of Donald Trump that he would continue to pursue a vendetta against a man who at one stage had been in charge of the Homeland Security agency responsible for overseeing the cyber defences of the US and the 2020 Presidential election?

Krebs, it should be remembered, had served as the first CISA director from 2018 until he was fired by Donald Trump in November 2020.

Krebs had declared that the 2020 presidential election, which Democrat Joe Biden had won, was “the most secure in American history.”

For example Krebs told CNN at the time there “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

US election officials also insisted that the 2020 vote was the “most secure” in US history.

President Trump however refused to concede that he had lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and to this day Trump continues to make unsubstantiated claims of ‘massive’ voter fraud.

An unhappy Trump tweeted in late 2020 that “effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

Trump executive order

Trump’s executive order took an extraordinary approach of targetting a specific individual, as well as any entities he was associated with.

In his order, Trump called Krebs a “bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority.”

“Krebs’ misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic,” the order said. “Krebs, through CISA, 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 directed the attorney general, director of national intelligence and “all other relevant agencies” to suspend “any active security clearances held by individuals at entities associated with Krebs, including SentinelOne, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest.”

CNBC noted that Trump’s demands on SentinelOne resemble similar moves by the US President against law firms and universities, where he has tried to strongarm them into making significant changes in how they operate or else lose government contracts or funding.

Harvard University, the oldest university in the US, recently refused to follow his directives to make changes to its hiring, admissions and teaching practices, resulting in a freeze of federal funding.

Today the Trump administration also threatened to ban Harvard University from enrolling foreign students.