'Retribution': Election officials shocked as Trump orders more investigations

Jessica Huseman, Votebeat
12 April
Donald Trump gestures at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., December 22, 2024. REUTERS/Cheney Orr/File Photo

President Trump issued a presidential memorandum Wednesday demanding an investigation by the Justice and Homeland Security departments into his former top cybersecurity official, escalating a campaign of retribution aimed at those who contradicted his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

The memo directly names Christopher Krebs, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director; a second memo named Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security official during Trump’s first term. Trump’s move shocked many who work in elections. While some current and former officials brushed off the order as political theater, others are taking it far more seriously — for example, hiring an attorney, scrubbing social media, and warning their spouse.

The range of reactions reflects both the extraordinary nature of Trump’s use of executive authority to target individuals and a deep uncertainty about how far it might go.

Trump has repeatedly made clear he has no intention of letting go of his allegations over the 2020 election. Election officials across the country said this week’s actions are an attempt to punish those who, like Krebs, defended the integrity of the vote.

Krebs was the first director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, created under the Trump administration, and he was nominated by Trump himself. During the 2020 election, as Trump and his allies pushed baseless claims of widespread fraud, CISA launched a rumor control site to debunk falsehoods about voting systems. After the election, both the agency and Krebs publicly affirmed the security of the vote — statements that drew Trump’s ire. He ultimately fired Krebs via tweet.

“I think [Krebs] said this is the safest election we’ve ever had, and yet, every day you read in the papers about more and more fraud that’s discovered,” Trump asserted without evidence in the Oval Office as he signed the memo Wednesday. “He’s the fraud. He’s a disgrace. So, we’ll find out whether or not it was a safe election, and if it wasn’t, he’s got a big price to pay, and he’s a bad guy.”

Krebs did not respond to Votebeat’s request for an interview. On Wednesday night, he reupped on X — formerly Twitter — a post from November 2020. “Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomrorow [sic]. #Protect2020,” it read.

Ann Jacobs, a Democrat and the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, expressed outrage over Trump’s targeting of Krebs. “The 2020 election was neither stolen nor rigged,” she said. “It is shocking that the current administration cannot admit this, and instead has targeted people who have declared this obvious truth.”

In addition to revoking Krebs’ security clearance, the memorandum revokes the security clearances of any employee of Krebs’ security firm, SentinelOne. In a statement, the company said that it would “actively cooperate in any review of security clearances held by any of our personnel,” which includes fewer than 10 employees. The company said it does not expect this to “materially impact our business in any way.”

President Trump’s memorandum directs the attorney general and Homeland Security secretary to conduct a full review of Krebs’ activities during his time as a government employee, including any potential dissemination of classified information, and a “comprehensive evaluation” of CISA’s activities over the past six years. In an unusual move, it also instructs DHS and the attorney general to issue a joint report with recommendations.

David Becker, a longtime elections attorney who formerly worked for the Justice Department and executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the president’s request itself illustrates the weakness of the allegations over the 2020 election.

“As we sit here four and a half years after the election, there has still not been one single shred of evidence introduced in any court that would suggest the 2020 election was stolen. You can understand why the president would not want his claims to be vetted in court,” he said, adding that the election has withstood “more scrutiny than any election in American history.”

In addition to the memos targeting Krebs and Taylor, Trump this week issued the latest in a series of executive orders targeting law firms, this time naming Susman Godfrey, the law firm that represented Dominion Voting Systems in its successful defamation cases. Fox News settled the case in 2023 for a staggering $787 million, one of the largest known media defamation settlements in U.S. history.

The move came on the same day a Delaware judge again ruled that conservative outlet Newsmax aired false and defamatory claims about Dominion — a case in which Susman is leading Dominion’s legal team.

“Anyone who knows Susman Godfrey knows we believe in the rule of law, and we take seriously our duty to uphold it. This principle guides us now. There is no question that we will fight this unconstitutional order,” the firm said in a statement. Justin Nelson, the attorney managing Dominion’s cases, declined further comment.

State and local election officials watched the executive actions with a mix of exasperation and fear. Combined with last month’s executive order on elections — already the subject of multiple lawsuits — the latest moves have deepened concerns about the growing use of presidential power to target individuals for defending the democratic process.

Many were reluctant to speak on the record out of concern for making themselves targets of Trump’s ire, but said the actions feel less like policy and more like personal retaliation, fueling an increasingly hostile environment for election officials. Some described the orders as not just disruptive but dangerous — eroding trust in nonpartisan institutions and chilling the work of public servants already under threat.

The uncertainty around how the orders will be enforced, what precedent they set, and what other election-related directives Trump may issue has heightened alarm for some. Votebeat has granted some people anonymity to speak about the memorandum because of concerns about retribution. “I’m terrified, honestly,” said one official, who has spoken with legal counsel.

Aaron Thacker, a spokesperson for Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said there is “a heightened sense of anxiety, about who is next, or what is next.”

“This is a form of retribution,” he said.

One former election official in a swing state who was targeted by Trump after the 2020 election said seeing the executive order on Krebs triggered immediate anxiety. That person reached out to an official in another state to share their concerns about what might come next. A reminder that they hadn’t done anything wrong helped calm them down — at least for now.

Others are less fazed.

“I’m not hiring a lawyer,” said one swing state election official. “I’m making some soup.”

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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