Donald Trump falsely calls 2020 election ‘rigged’ in memo targeting former cybersecurity leader

As President Donald Trump targeted one of his first-term government officials, he also repeated the long debunked falsehood that the “2020 election was rigged and stolen.”

In an April 9 memo, Trump directed his administration to strip security clearance from Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and investigate Kreb’s time at CISA. 

Trump said Krebs “weaponized” his authority and “censored speech.”

“Krebs, through CISA, 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.”

Trump repeated that the election was rigged while he signed the memo in the Oval Office on April 9.

“This guy, Krebs, was saying, ‘Oh, the election was great. It was great.’ Well, it’s been proven that it was not only not great … It was a very corrupt election. They used COVID to cheat,” Trump said.

“Almost right from the beginning and (Krebs), he’s tried to make the case that this election was a safe election,” Trump continued. “I think he 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.”

The 2020 election was neither rigged nor stolen. Joe Biden won. States certified the results, Congress accepted the results and Biden was inaugurated in January 2021.

Trump’s repeated falsehoods about the 2020 election are not only about revenge and backward looking. He has used falsehoods about the election to push for changes to voting laws. 

Trump fired Krebs in 2020 for affirming the election’s safety 

As the senior Trump administration official responsible for election security and infrastructure, Krebs and his agency affirmed multiple times the 2020 election’s safety.

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,” the Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council & the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees, said in a Nov. 12 statement. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Krebs’ agency released the statement, but his name was not on it. 

Five days later, on Nov. 17, 2020, Krebs posted on X citing a letter signed by 59 election security experts: “‘In every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.’”

That day, Trump fired Krebs, calling his agency’s reporting “highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud.” We rated Trump’s statement Pants on Fire! 

The 2020 election was not ‘rigged and stolen’

Today, there’s more evidence to refute Trump’s statement about the election’s security. 

Biden won the 2020 election after receiving 306 electoral votes, compared with 232 for Trump. Biden also got about 7 million more votes nationwide than Trump. 

Trump and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits contesting the 2020 election results; they lost more than 60. The lawsuits failed for various reasons,including that the allegations lacked proof.

In 2022, a group of Republicans, including former federal judges, examined Trump’s statements of fraud and miscount. They concluded that the claims “failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the (election) results.” 

There were few, isolated cases of voter fraud in 2020, including by Republicans. Those cases included people casting votes on dead relatives’ behalf and would not have changed the election’s outcome. 

Our ruling

Trump said the 2020 election was “rigged” and Krebs “baselessly” dismissed “election malfeasance.”

As the senior Trump administration official responsible for election security and infrastructure, Krebs and his agency affirmed the 2020 election’s security.

The 2020 election, one of the most scrutinized and litigated in history, was neither rigged nor stolen. 

Biden won the election. The states and Congress certified and accepted the results. Trump and his allies lost more than 60 election lawsuits. And many election security officials — including Republicans and people in Trump’s own administration — determined the 2020 election was secure.

We rate Trump’s statement Pants on Fire! 

PolitiFact Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman contributed to this report. 

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