US President Donald Trump fired General Timothy Haugh as director of the National Security Agency, in a national security purge that sources said on Friday included more than a dozen staff at the White House national security council.
The move came a day after far-right activist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office and urged Trump to remove certain people whose views she deemed disloyal.
Loomer advocated for the firings during a meeting with Trump on Wednesday, she confirmed to The Washington Post on Thursday evening.
In the meeting, Loomer, a fervent Trump supporter, pressed for the dismissals of a number of officials besides Haugh and his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble,— in particular, National Security Council staff whose views she saw as disloyal to the president.
“NSA Director Tim Haugh and his deputy Wendy Noble have been disloyal to President Trump,” Loomer said in a post on X early Friday. “That is why they have been fired.”
Loomer told The Washington Post that she urged Trump to dismiss Haugh because he was “handpicked” by Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2023 when Haugh was nominated to lead Cyber Command and the NSA.
A senior US official revealed that Trump had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to fire Haugh.
Last January, Hegseth revoked the security detail and security clearance for Milley, according to Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, an unprecedented move against the former top US general who became a frequent target of Trump.
Democrats Oppose Trump’s Decision
Media outlets including The Washington Post had reported Haugh's firing on Thursday night, citing current and former US officials, who said they did not know the reason for Haugh’s dismissal or Noble’s reassignment.
The named acting NSA director is Lt. Gen. William J. Hartman, who was the Cyber Command deputy, one of the officials said. Sheila Thomas, who was the executive director at the NSA, was named acting deputy, according to two officials.
Haugh is a cyber professional with more than 30 years of military service, including as head of Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force, which led offensive cyber military operations overseas, and as commander of the 16th Air Force in San Antonio.
He ran Cyber Command’s half of the “Russia Small Group,” a joint effort with the NSA to defend the 2018 midterm elections from Russian interference. The NSA portion was led by Anne Neuberger, who went on to serve in the Biden administration as a deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies.
During the election defense effort in 2018, Haugh led offensive operations against Russian trolls and launched initiatives to disclose publicly Russian spy agency malware and to conduct “Hunt Forward” missions to boot Russian intelligence from Eastern European government networks, recalled Jason Kikta, who was at the time lead defensive cyber operations planner for Cyber Command.
Reaction from the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees was swift.
Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Haugh served with distinction.
“At a time when the United States is facing unprecedented cyberthreats, as the Salt Typhoon cyberattack from China has so clearly underscored, how does firing him make Americans any safer?” Warner said in a statement.
“I am deeply disturbed by the decision” to remove Haugh, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Connecticut), Warner’s counterpart in the House, said in a statement.
Himes described Haugh as an “honest and forthright leader who followed the law and put national security first. I fear those are precisely the qualities that could lead to his firing in this administration.”
Additional Firings
Trump, a Republican, has fired multiple nonpartisan top officials at US agencies and installed loyalists since beginning his second term on Jan. 20.
In February, he fired Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was dismissed along with five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership.
Meanwhile, The New York Times said Loomer, who has floated the baseless conspiracy theory that the Sept. 11 attacks were an “inside job” and is viewed as extreme by even some of Trump’s far-right allies, was apparently wielding more influence over the staff of the National Security Council than Waltz, who runs the agency.
The Times said that flying to Florida aboard Air Force One late Thursday, Trump called Loomer a “great patriot” and denied that she had anything to do with the firings.
