NSA chief and US Cyber Command head ousted

• Several high ranking officials across the NSA have been reassigned
• This comes after far-right activist Laura Loomer lobbied against department members
• This follows a turbulent few days for the administration

President Trump has “reassigned” the Head of the US Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, Timothy Haugh, with Wendy Noble, Deputy Chief of the NSA, now transferred into the Pentagon’s office, and four other officials removed.

Both agencies will reportedly be headed up by William Hartman for the time being, although it's possible that Trump will split the “dual-hat” leadership structure between the NSA and Cyber Command as he did last time he was in office.

Far-right activist Laura Loomer claimed Haugh and Noble were fired because they have been “disloyal to President Trump”, arguing the administration “cannot allow for a Biden nominee” to hold the office of “arguably the most powerful intel agency in the world” in the NSA.

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In the firing line

The Vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, Mark Warner, took to X (formerly Twitter) to speak out against the reassignment of Haugh, pointing to the lack of action over the “Signalgate” scandal as a hypocrisy of the administration;

“It is astonishing that President Trump would fire the nonpartisan, experienced leader of the NSA while still failing to hold any member of his team accountable for leaking classified information on a commercial messaging app – even as he apparently takes staffing direction on national security from a discredited conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office.”

Other high-ranking Democrats are reportedly “deeply disturbed” by the decision, and say it jeopardises national security.

This recent round of firings follows mass federal layoffs, which a former NSA cybersecurity director has warned will have a "devastating impact on cybersecurity” - continuing the instability in the department.

Loomer reportedly had a persuading hand in the decision, and lobbied against numerous she considers disloyal, including against Deputy National Security Advisor Alex Wong, who Loomer claimed added a journalist to the sensitive Signal chat “as part of a foreign opp to embarrass the Trump administration on behalf of China”.

Wong’s wife also works at the Justice department and was involved in prosecuting January 6 Capitol rioters, which might help explain Loomer’s vendetta.

Via The Washington Post

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