National Security Agency chief and deputy director dismissed
The director and the No. 2 official at the National Security Agency were ousted from their positions Thursday, according to a defense official and three sources with knowledge of the matter.
It was not immediately clear why Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh and his deputy were dismissed, the sources said.
The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night.
Haugh was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency, a role he had served in since February 2024. Deputy NSA Director Wendy Noble was the agency’s senior civilian leader.
Both are career officials — Haugh with more than 30 years in the Air Force, primarily in intelligence and cyber jobs, along with a degree in Russian studies, while Nobles worked her way up at the NSA since 1987.
Congressional Democrats blasted the Trump administration over the firings.
“I have known General Haugh to be 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,” Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.
“The Intelligence Committee and the American people need an immediate explanation for this decision, which makes all of us less safe,” he added.
Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior intelligence official, called the dismissals “unprecedented.”
“America should worry when the politicians want to control the guys with the world’s most powerful eavesdropping capability,” he said.
He said presidents in the past have deferred to the advice of the defense secretary and the CIA director on appointments to lead the NSA.
Last month, Trump adviser Elon Musk visited the National Security Agency’s headquarters and met with Haugh.
That visit came around a week after Musk remarked on his social media platform X that “The NSA needs an overhaul.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the removal of Haugh “astonishing.”
“At a time when the United States is facing unprecedented cyber threats, as the Salt Typhoon cyberattack from China has so clearly underscored, how does firing him make Americans any safer?” Warner said in a statement.
