Former head of US election security calls Trump team fraud allegations ‘farcical’

US Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director, Christopher Krebs testifies at a US House Oversight subcommittee hearing on election security on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 22, 2019. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo)
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Updated 28 November 2020
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Former head of US election security calls Trump team fraud allegations ‘farcical’

  • Biden won the election with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232 and by over six million in the popular vote
  • Trump and his lawyers continue to allege, without evidence, that the election was stolen through widespread fraud

LOS ANGELES: The top US cybersecurity official fired by Republican President Donald Trump for saying the Nov. 3 election was the most secure in American history said on Friday voter fraud allegations made by Trump and his allies are “farcical.”
Chris Krebs, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the CBS 60 Minutes program that allegations of US voting machines being manipulated by foreign countries were baseless.
Sidney Powell, a Trump attorney cut loose by the Trump legal team this week, had put forward a conspiracy theory that election systems created in Venezuela at the behest of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez helped tip the US election to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.
She and others have also alleged that voting machines had flipped votes from Trump to Biden and some US voting information was stored on servers in Germany.
“All votes in the Unites States of America are counted in the United States of America. Period,” Krebs said, in an excerpt broadcast on CBS Evening News. The full 60 Minutes interview will air on Sunday. Krebs was fired by Trump on Nov. 17 after calling the election the “most secure in American history.”
“There’s no evidence that any machine that I’m aware of has been manipulated by a foreign power,” Krebs said, calling such allegations “farcical claims.” He added: “The American people should have 100% confidence in their vote.”
Biden won the election with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. He leads Trump by over six million in the popular vote.
Trump and his lawyers continue to allege, without evidence, that the election was stolen through widespread fraud and Trump is the winner. Trump said on Thursday he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Biden.


Israel’s recognition of Somaliland ‘threat’ to regional stability: Somali president

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Israel’s recognition of Somaliland ‘threat’ to regional stability: Somali president

MOGADISHU: Israel’s recognition of the breakaway region of Somaliland “is (a) threat to the security and stability of the world and the region,” Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told an emergency parliamentary session Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Friday announcement, making his country the first to recognize Somaliland, “is tantamount to a blunt aggression against the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and the unity of the people of the Somali Republic,” Mohamud said.
Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has for decades pushed for international recognition.
A self-proclaimed republic, it enjoys a strategic position on the Gulf of Aden and has its own money, passports and army.
But it has been diplomatically isolated since its unilateral declaration of independence.
Somalia’s government and the African Union reacted angrily Friday after Israel’s announcement.
Mogadishu denounced a “deliberate attack” on its sovereignty, while Egypt, Turkiye, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation all condemned the decision.