Chris Krebs resigns from SentinelOne to focus on fighting Trump’s executive order – CyberScoop
Chris Krebs has resigned from SentinelOne, saying he needs to devote himself fully to fighting the executive order President Donald Trump signed to target his former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The executive order was a key touchpoint in Trump’s unprecedented campaign to punish those he views as his enemies. While at CISA, Krebs’ agency asserted that the 2020 election was the most secure in history, and Trump has insisted the race was stolen from him despite every court rejecting his bid to overturn it.
The April 9 order directed the Justice Department to investigate Krebs’ work at CISA and for the federal government to suspend his security clearance, as well as anyone else who holds one at SentinelOne.
“For those who know me, you know I don’t shy away from tough fights,” Krebs wrote in an email Wednesday to SentinelOne employees, the company where he was the chief intelligence and public policy officer. “But I know this is one I need to take on fully — outside of SentinelOne. This will require my complete focus and energy. It’s a fight for democracy, for freedom of speech, and for the rule of law. I’m prepared to give it everything I’ve got.”
SentinelOne posted the Krebs email on its website. It previously had said it would cooperate with the security clearance reviews, which would affect only a small number of employees. It also posted an email from CEO Tomer Weingarten responding to Krebs.
“I know I speak on behalf of all of us when I say thank you to Chris for his transparency and integrity — especially at this difficult moment,” Weingarten wrote. “It reflects the values he has always brought to SentinelOne and the people around him.”
The executive order targeting Krebs and another former Department of Homeland Security official, Miles Taylor, have come under scathing criticism from both the left and the right.
Conservative legal scholar J. Michael Luttig described them as “constitutionally corrupt,” “a travesty of justice” and “shameful.”
Olivia Troye, a national security official during the first Trump administration, praised Krebs Thursday.
“He made this decision to protect the company from further harm, and to take this abuse of power head-on,” she wrote. “That’s not just integrity. That’s courage. That’s leadership.”
Asked this week on how directing DOJ to investigate Krebs was not an abuse of power, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt answered that the president signed the order because it was “well within his authority to do it.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, which was first to report on Krebs’ resignation, he said he understood why some have tried to avoid further angering the president when targeted.
“I don’t think this lay-low-and-hope-this-blows-over approach is the right one for the moment we’re in,” he said.
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