Trump’s revenge politics has a new target: the cybersecurity official who defied him in 2020

President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered federal officials to investigate the former head of the country’s top cybersecurity agency and revoke his security clearances, years after he first disputed Trump’s election fraud claims.

In a memorandum shared Wednesday, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to “take all appropriate action to review” Chris Krebs’ activities as a government employee and report those findings back to the White House.

Krebs has been a prime target since he was fired by Trump over tweet in November 2020 for saying that President Biden fairly won the election, directly opposing the administration’s unsubstantiated view that there was electoral fraud. The memo describes Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), as a “significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority.”

The memo also targets Krebs in his current position as SentinelOne’s chief intelligence and public policy officer, stripping anyone who works at the company of their security clearances.

“In regard to the Executive Order dated April 9, 2025 focused on Chris Krebs in his prior role as a government employee, we will actively cooperate in any review of security clearances held by any of our personnel – currently less than 10 employees overall and only where required by existing government processes and procedures to secure government systems,” the company said in a statement. It added that it doesn’t expect the review to materially impact its business.

Krebs first joined SentinelOne’s advisory board in 2021. But he was further ingrained in the company when it acquired his advisory firm Krebs Stamos Group in 2023, which he founded with former Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos.

The move against Krebs reflects Trump’s broader strategy for revenge as he cements his second administrative term. Since returning to office, he’s used the stripping of security clearances to punish individuals and companies that have either defied or opposed him. For example, Trump rescinded the security clearances of Biden, several top law firms who employed lawyers who worked on investigations into Trump, and many members of his first administration.

Trump this week also targeted Miles Taylor, the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff who wrote an anonymous memoir that criticized Trump’s actions in his first term. The memo accused Taylor of having “stoked dissension by manufacturing sensationalist reports on the existence of a supposed ‘resistance’ within the Federal Government.”

“I said this would happen,” Taylor wrote on X. “Dissent isn’t unlawful. It certainly isn’t treasonous. America is headed down a dark path. Never has a man so inelegantly proved another man’s point.”

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