'Personal vendetta': National security experts horrified by Trump’s 'shocking abuse of power'

President Donald Trump sent shockwaves through the legal world once again when, on Wednesday, April 9, he issued executive orders calling for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate two of his political foes: ex-U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Chief of Staff Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

In a Friday morning, April 11 post on X, formerly Twitter, Larry Sabato — founder of Sabato's Crystal Ball — laments, "Trump's personal vendetta is damaging U.S. national security. Are there no Republicans in Congress who will speak out publicly?"

Sabato tweeted a NBC News article focusing on the national security issues being raised by Trump's executive order targeting Krebs.

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NBC News interviewed five CISA employees, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity and voiced their concerns.

One of them told NBC News, "It’s a really tough time for all of us right now. Every day feels somehow more bizarre than the last. It is incredibly difficult to focus on our mission."

Another interviewee said of Trump's Krebs order, "I feel so sickened by this. It's a shocking abuse of power."

A third CISA warned, "This EO targeting former director Krebs seems based in personal vendetta, and no American should be comfortable with that."

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One of the interviewees told NBC News, "It's a really tough time for all of us right now. Every day feels somehow more bizarre than the last. It is incredibly difficult to focus on our mission.”

Trump, critics allege, is targeting Krebs because the former CISA official pushed back against his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

NBC News' Kevin Collier reports, "Krebs, whom Trump appointed as CISA's inaugural director during his first term, quickly built the agency into the country’s frontline digital defender of critical systems. But he also emerged as a surprising counterpoint to the president, particularly around his efforts to advance false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The order Trump signed cites Krebs' insistence that there is no credible evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, despite Trump's false but often-repeated claims."

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