Trump orders probe of former CISA Director Chris Krebs over alleged censorship

Updated 4/10/2025 at 10:35 a.m. EST with a statement from SentinelOne.

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Wednesday to strip the security clearance of Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, whom Trump fired in 2020 after he said there had been no technological issues with the presidential election.

The remarkable memorandum directs agencies to revoke not only Krebs’ security clearance but also suspend those “held by individuals at entities associated with Krebs,” including the cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, where he is the chief intelligence and public policy officer. That directive is “pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest,” according to a fact sheet supplied by the White House. 

Last July, SentinelOne — a publicly traded company — announced a partnership with CISA to “improve the cyber security posture of government IT assets and critical infrastructure.”

The company said in a statement that it sees the White House as a “as a crucial collaborator” and would “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.”

Trump's announcement attempts to cast a broad net across CISA, calling for a “comprehensive evaluation” of agency activities over the previous six years, purportedly to “identify any instances where Krebs’ or CISA’s conduct appears to be contrary to the administration’s commitment to free speech and ending federal censorship.” 

According to the White House, the agency and Krebs “suppressed conservative viewpoints under the guise of combatting purported misinformation, and recruited and coerced major social media platforms to further its partisan mission.” Republicans in Congress have expressed similar concerns, saying the agency was “weaponized” against conservatives.

During the 2020 elections — which Trump lost to Joe Biden — CISA communicated with online platforms in an effort to regulate misinformation and disinformation, a practice it abandoned during the most recent election season.

The White House's fact sheet resurrects debunked allegations of election fraud, alleging Krebs ignored “known risks associated with certain voting practices and falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines.” Coverage of similar allegations led a voting machine manufacturer to sue Fox News for defamation, resulting in a $787.5 million settlement in 2023.

Krebs also allegedly worked to suppress news about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was left in a Delaware repair shop and was at the time believed to be part of an influence operation. Trump already revoked the security clearances of a group of intelligence officials who had assessed the laptop was a disinformation ploy.   

A lifelong Republican and a former director of cybersecurity policy at Microsoft, Krebs was appointed director of the agency by Trump when it was founded in 2018. After leaving government, he co-founded the Krebs-Stamos Group consultancy, which closed in 2023. He also has served as an analyst for CBS News and a fellow at the Aspen Institute and Harvard University’s Belfer Center.

Sean Plankey, who served in two cyber-oriented roles during the first Trump presidency, is the nominee to lead CISA in the new administration.

In an announcement on Wednesday in the Oval Office that touched on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the COVID-19 pandemic and the October 7 attacks in Israel, Trump derisively called Krebs a “wise guy.” 

“He said ‘We’re going to prove this was the most secure election in the history of our country,” Trump said. “No, this was a disaster.” 

Joe Warminsky contributed to this story.