A lawyer for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign said Chris Krebs — the former U.S. cybersecurity chief who defended the integrity of the 2020 election — should be executed.
Trump fired Krebs, a lifelong Republican and former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in November after Krebs called this year’s election the most secure in the country’s history, contradicting the president’s baseless claims that the election was fraudulent.
In a Nov. 17 post later flagged by Twitter as “disputed,” Trump said Krebs had been terminated and the president continued to push unfounded claims that the election was rigged against him.
Krebs, a Trump appointee, stood by his comments, tweeting he was “honored to serve” and that “we did it right.”
In a Monday interview on “The Howie Carr Show,” Joe diGenova, part of the Trump campaign’s legal team, called Krebs a “moron” for saying the election was secure and said he should be killed.
“Anybody who thinks that this election went well like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity — that guy is a class A moron,” he told Carr. “He should be drawn and quartered, taken out a dawn and shot.”
Carr is a host on Newsmax, a conservative network, Forbes reports. His show has historically showcased Trump’s “claims and allies,” according to Politico.
Krebs responded to diGenova’s comments during an interview with NBC’s “TODAY” show, saying he’s looking at “available opportunities” for legal action.
“It’s certainly more dangerous language, more dangerous behavior, and the way I look at is that we are a nation of laws, and I plan to take advantage of those laws,” he said on the show. “I’ve got an exceptional team of lawyers that win in court and I think they’re probably going to be busy.”
The president and his allies have repeatedly lodged attacks against Krebs and others who have spoken out against their claims of election fraud.
The president has refused to concede to President-elect Joe Biden as Trump and his campaign have attempted to overturn or challenge Biden’s projected win in a number of battleground states with lawsuits that have been largely unsuccessful in court.
Biden has 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232, according to The Associated Press. The winner needs 270.
Earlier this week, Trump railed against CBS News’s “60 Minutes” for hosting Krebs on the program.
During the interview, Krebs emphasized that Trump’s claims of election interference are false and asserted his confidence in the integrity of the election.
Trump called the interview a “ridiculous, one sided story” and that the show “never asked us for a comment.”
Krebs said he has no regrets about contradicting Trump’s statements.
“It was the right thing to do in the name of democracy,” Krebs said in an interview with NPR.
This isn’t the first time one of the president’s allies has called for someone they consider Trump’s opponent to be killed.
In early November, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon suggested Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded, according to CNN. The video was removed from Facebook and YouTube and Bannon was suspended from Twitter.
Published at www.star-telegram.com
