Former Director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Christopher Krebs has indicated he is considering legal action after a lawyer for Trump’s reelection campaign called for him to receive a gruesome, medieval form of punishment associated with treason.
On Monday, Joe diGenova, an attorney for Trump’s campaign, told conservative Boston-area talk radio host Howie Carr that Krebs was “a class A moron” who “should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot” - a punishment he seemed to think should be applied to “anybody who thinks the election went well.”
Krebs was fired by Trump on November 17 for what the called a “highly inaccurate” statement about the absence of electronic fraud during the November 3 US election.
The House Committee on Homeland Security subsequently denounced the move as Trump putting “his political interests ahead of their responsibilities to the American people. That is not only disturbing, it is antidemocratic.”
Earlier that day, Krebs had tweeted: “ICYMI: On allegations that election systems were manipulated, 59 election security experts all agree, ‘in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.’”
This followed reports by CISA on November 4 and again on November 12 that, despite claims of widespread fraud by Trump, the agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, had found “no evidence” of such fraud.
Trump has maintained since the November 3 election that widespread fraud has caused several key states with close races between him and Democratic candidate Joe Biden to swing in Biden’s favor, filing a slew of lawsuits aimed at recounting or dismissing many of the ballots cast. Most mainstream media outlets have informally declared Biden the clear winner, especially as several of the states that recounted their ballots have certified their results and nearly all of Trump’s lawsuits have been dismissed by the courts. However, Biden will not officially be president-elect until the Electoral College votes on December 14, and in his favor.
On Tuesday, diGenova tried to unring the bell calling for Krebs’ dismemberment, saying in a statement distributed by the Trump campaign, "For anyone listening to the Howie Carr Show, it was obvious that my remarks were sarcastic and made in jest. I, of course, wish Mr. Krebs no harm. This was hyperbole in a political discourse.”
However, his comments followed similar ones by Trump’s attorney and diGenova’s colleague, Rudy Giuliani, on Fox News in which he said someone should “cut the head off” the Democratic Party, making a throat-slashing gesture with his fingers.
Despite diGenova’s walking back of his comments about Krebs, the former CISA chief told NBC Tuesday he would be “taking a look at all our available opportunities” when asked if legal action might follow the lawyer’s comments.
“I’m not going to give them the benefit of knowing how I’m reacting to this,” he said, adding that “they can know there are things coming, though.”
Later on Tuesday, US Attorney General William Barr voiced similar conclusions as Krebs, telling the Associated Press that “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”
"There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results," Barr told AP. "And the DHS and DOJ [Department of Justice] have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that."
