Former CIA Director John Brennan ripped into Trump for firing Chris Krebs, saying he 'knows nothing about cybersecurity' and is trying to 'steal the election' from Biden

• Former CIA director John Brennan chastised Trump after he fired senior US security official Chris Krebs.
• He on Tuesday accused Trump of trying to "steal the election" and said he knew "nothing about cybersecurity."
• Trump's fired Krebs after he rejected the outgoing president's claims that the election was tampered with.
• The federal agency within the Department of Homeland Security which Krebs led last week issued a statement calling November's election "the most secure in American history."
• Trump without evidence accused Krebs of issuing a "highly inaccurate" statement about election fraud and said there were "massive improprieties" in the voting system, in claims which Twitter said were "disputed."

Former CIA director John Brennan accused Donald Trump of trying to "steal the election" and said the president knew "nothing about cybersecurity" after Trump fired a senior official who had rejected his claims that the presidential election was rigged.

Trump on Tuesday announced that he had fired Chris Krebs, the head of Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), because the department had issued a statement calling November's election "the most secure in American history."

Speaking to CNN, Brennan — who was CIA director between 2013 and 2017 — said that Trump was "trying to steal the election back from Joe Biden" and suggested that Krebs was chosen as "the target of a vendetta" by the president.

"Chris Krebs is a highly qualified and widely respected cybersecurity expert," Brennan told CNN.

"He knows of which he speaks and I think Chris and the rest of the cybersecurity professionals in government did an excellent job this year in trying to secure the election process.

"Donald Trump knows nothing about cybersecurity or technology and therefore again he continues to condemn those who say anything he disagrees with and since he is trying to steal the election back from Joe Biden, I think he sees Chris Krebs as being the target of a vendetta that obviously he has wielded tonight," Brennan added.

Krebs, who reportedly expected to be fired by Trump last week, had been responsible for protecting this month's presidential election from domestic or foreign interference and comes as Trump refuses to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump announced that he had fired Krebs in two tweets on Tuesday evening, saying that the official had issued a "highly inaccurate" statement about the security of the election and said there were "massive improprieties" in the voting system, despite no evidence having emerged to support his claim. Both tweets were marked by Twitter with a label which read: "This claim about election fraud is disputed."

Trump appeared to be responding to a statement issued by CISA last week saying that there was "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised," a rebuttal of Trump's repeated claims that the electoral system had been tampered with.

Krebs acknowledged Trump's move to fire him on Tuesday night, tweeting from his personal account: "Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomrorow [sic]. #Protect2020"