■ An ex-cybersecurity official testified at a Senate committee hearing on the 2020 election.
Ex-official says claims hurting trust in system
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers bickered heatedly at times Wednesday during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in which a former federal cybersecurity official who oversaw election security said continued attempts to undermine confidence in the process were corrosive to democracy.
Republican GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the committee chairman, said his goal was to have a bipartisan hearing to examine the election.
Democrats on the committee solicited the testimony of Christopher Krebs, who led the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency until he was fired by President Donald Trump in a Nov. 17 tweet. Under Krebs, the agency operated a “rumor control” webpage that debunked some of the conspiracy theories being perpetuated by Trump and his allies.
Under questioning, Krebs acknowledged that some of his staff had been approached about making changes to the webpage, but none was made, and he said voting systems were secure in the 2020 election.
“I’m seeing these reports, that are factually inaccurate, continue to be promoted,” Krebs said. “We have to stop this. It’s undermining confidence in democracy.”
During the session, Trump tweeted that Krebs was “totally excoriated and proven wrong at the Senate Hearing on the Fraudulent 2020 Election” and the president insisted that “Massive FRAUD took place.”
Johnson and the committee’s top Democrat, Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, yelled at each other after Johnson brought up old, unrelated Democratic allegations that he spread disinformation earlier in the year about work done in Ukraine by Hunter Biden, the president-elect’s son. Johnson said Peters had “lied” about the Republican’s role. Peters shot back that Johnson was “airing old grievances.”
Peters said the hearing “gives a platform to conspiracy theories and lies” and is destructive.
“These claims are false. And giving them more oxygen is a grave threat to the future of our democracy,” Peters said.
Johnson said Trump’s election claims “raised legitimate concerns and they do need to be taken seriously.”
Jesse Binnall, an attorney for the Trump campaign, testified that “our evidence has never been checked, only ignored.”