Donald Trump fires top election security official Christopher Krebs after he contradicted voter fraud claims

Donald Trump has fired the head of the federal agency that vouched for the reliability of the presidential election, contradicting his voter fraud claims.

The US leader fired Christopher Krebs by tweet, saying his recent statement defending the security of the election was "highly inaccurate".

Mr Trump is refusing to recognise the victory of Joe Biden, and is removing high-level officials seen as insufficiently loyal.

The firing of Mr Krebs, a Trump appointee and director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is only the latest of his dismissals.

He fired defence secretary Mark Esper on November 9, part of a broader shake-up that put Trump loyalists in senior Pentagon positions.

Mr Krebs, a former Microsoft executive, ran the agency, known as CISA, from its creation in the wake of Russian interference with the 2016 vote.

He won bipartisan praise as CISA co-ordinated federal state and local efforts to defend electoral systems from foreign or domestic interference.

In recent days, Mr Krebs has repeatedly pushed back against false claims that the election was tainted.

He had tweeted report citing 59 election security experts saying there is no credible evidence of computer fraud in the 2020 election outcome.

Krebs, from his personal Twitter account, replied to his sacking saying: "Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomrorow."

He closed with the phrase "Protect 2020," which had been his agency's slogan ahead of the election.

Officials with CISA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, had no immediate comment.