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The presidential administration’s war on truth has continued full speed ahead this week, with Donald Trump calling for investigations into pollsters and media outlets over unflattering polls and pressuring Amazon not to notify customers how much his tariffs are increasing the price of products.
And these days, few people are being targeted in Trump’s crusade against reality quite like Chris Krebs, his former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
And these days, few people are being targeted in Trump’s crusade against reality quite like Chris Krebs.
Trump and his administration have targeted him for having the gall to publicly debunk Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election. Earlier this week, my MSNBC colleague Steve Benen highlighted Krebs’ outspokenness as he fights Trump’s authoritarian executive order demanding that the Justice Department probe his time leading CISA. And then CNN reported Wednesday that the Trump administration has taken additional steps to make life harder for Krebs by pulling his membership in U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry program, which allows people to re-enter the country easily.
Chris Krebs’, President Donald Trump’s former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, membership in Global Entry has been revoked. Krebs, who has repeatedly attested to the security of the 2020 election, told CNN he finds it hard to believe this isn’t another act of retribution from the administration.
On Wednesday afternoon, Krebs received an email saying that his Trusted Traveler Program status had changed. He logged into the program and learned his Global Entry program membership had been revoked, he told CNN. Global Entry is the US Customs and Border Protection program that gives low-risk travelers expedited clearance when they arrive in the US.
Trump earlier this month stripped Krebs of any existing security clearance he may still hold since leaving office and ordered the Justice Department to probe the former official.
Republicans have targeted CISA in their yearslong effort to discredit people who dispel disinformation and identify foreign attempts to manipulate Americans. The Trump administration has slashed millions of dollars from CISA’s budget and vowed to establish new priorities.
If there’s been one constant throughout Trump’s second term, I’d argue it’s his administration’s angst toward truth-tellers — or, simply put, people whose adherence to facts undercuts Trump’s political goals.
I think it’s fair to say we saw this when Trump blew up at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for saying Americans will eventually “feel” the impact from Russia’s war against his country. We’ve seen this in Trump’s aforementioned attacks on the free press and a private company that considered shining light on the impact of his destructive tariffs.
And now Krebs is the target of the president’s wrath for refusing to accept his warped reality as truth.