President Donald Trump directed federal agencies Wednesday to revoke the security clearances and review the activities of two high-level former government officials who questioned his election fraud claims and his conduct in his first term.
Christopher Krebs, the former head of the federal government's top cybersecurity agency, said Joe Biden won the 2020 elections, contradicting Trump's claim that the election was stolen.
Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official, wrote an anonymous memoir that criticized Trump's handling of classified documents and other conduct during his first term.
One memorandum Trump signed directed the attorney general and the homeland security secretary to "take all appropriate action to review" Krebs' activities. Another directed the homeland security secretary to review Taylor’s activities as a government employee.
The memo relating to Krebs described him as a "significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority."
The other memo said Taylor "stoked dissension by manufacturing sensationalist reports on the existence of a supposed 'resistance' within the Federal Government."
Krebs declined to comment. Taylor said on X that he wasn't surprised by Trump's actions.
“I said this would happen,” Taylor wrote. “Dissent isn’t unlawful. It certainly isn’t treasonous. America is headed down a dark path.”
He added: “Never has a man so inelegantly proved another man’s point.”
Taylor wrote ananonymous op-edwhile he was working at the Department of Homeland Security in which he said many senior administration officials were trying to limit Trump’s impulses and frustrate his agenda.
In his memoir, Taylor describes having heard about Trump’s interest in “tapping” White House aides’ phones in a bid to stanch media leaks.
Krebs was the first director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which during the Trump administration began offering cybersecurity and physical security help to state and local election officials.
Trump fired Krebs in a tweet in November 2020over the agency’s Rumor Control website, which corrected falsehoods about election integrity, many of which Trump and his allies promoted.
Krebs was among the most vocal government officialsdebunking baseless claimsabout election manipulation, particularly addressing a conspiracy theory centered on Dominion Voting Systems machines that Trump's lawyers have pushed.
As a prominent critic of Trump’s false claims that the election 2020 was stolen, Krebs has been a consistent target for Trump.
Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, condemned Trump’s attack on Krebs.
“Krebs executed his constitutional and professional duty by debunking lies about the 2020 election," Hime said in an email. "That Donald Trump would wield the Justice Department against him for such an act represents yet another chilling step towards authoritarianism."
Tom Winter is a New York-based correspondent covering crime, courts, terrorism and financial fraud on the East Coast for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
Kevin Collier
Kevin Collier is a reporter covering cybersecurity, privacy and technology policy for NBC News.
David Rohde
David Rohde is the senior executive editor for national security at NBC News. A Pulitzer Prize winner who previously worked at the New York Times and the New Yorker, his latest book is Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI and the War on Democracy.
Chloe Atkins
and
Dan De Luce
contributed
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