Garrett M Graff writes:

Within minutes of Donald Trump tweeting that he had fired Christopher Krebs as the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency Tuesday night, Twitter slapped on a warning label that the accompanying claim about electoral fraud “is disputed.” The disinformation warning was, in some ways, a fitting denouement to a two-week-long battle between Krebs, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and his boss in the Oval Office. Ultimately, Krebs’ mission to protect and defend the November election collided with the president’s refusal to accept its results.

The firing of Krebs marks perhaps the most upsetting moment for democracy since the president’s refusal to accept his election loss two weeks ago. Trump has since spread disinformation wildly and has prevented the government bureaucracy from beginning a normal, peaceful transition. His increasingly quixotic legal battle has seen over a dozen courtroom losses across multiple states.

Krebs did nothing more than tell the truths that Trump is trying to ignore; he was fired for almost literally pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

In the eyes of all but one person, the Department of Homeland Security’s “Rumor Control” website has been a runaway success. Created in the run-up to this month’s election by CISA, which oversees the Department of Homeland Security’s election-focused work, the website has been rapidly fact-checking and debunking all manner of conspiracies, misunderstandings, and outright disinformation circulating online. [Continue reading…]