Top congressional Democrats on Thursday protested against the reported firing of Gen Tim Haugh as director of the National Security Agency (NSA), with one lawmaker saying the decision “makes all of us less safe”.
The Washington Post reported late Thursday that Haugh and his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, had been dismissed from their roles. Haugh also headed US Cyber Command, which coordinates the Pentagon’s cybersecurity operations. The Post report cited two current US officials and one former US official who requested anonymity.
Senator Mark Warner, vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said in a statement: “General Haugh has served our country in uniform, with honor and distinction, for more than 30 years. At a time when the United States is facing unprecedented cyber threats … how does firing him make Americans any safer?”
Representative Jim Himes, the ranking member on the House intelligence committee, said he was “deeply disturbed by the decision”.
“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,” Himes added. “The intelligence committee and the American people need an immediate explanation for this decision, which makes all of us less safe.”
Earlier on Thursday, President Donald Trump said he had fired “some” White House National Security Council officials, a move that came a day after far-right activist Laura Loomer raised concerns directly to him about staff loyalty.
Loomer, during her Oval Office conversation with Trump, urged the president to purge staffers she deemed insufficiently loyal to his “Make America Great Again” agenda, according to several people familiar with the matter. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel manner.
“Always we’re letting go of people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he made his way to Miami on Thursday afternoon. “People that we don’t like or people that we don’t think can do the job or people that may have loyalties to somebody else.”
The firings come as Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz continues to fight calls for his ouster after using the publicly available encrypted Signal app to discuss planning for the sensitive 15 March military operation targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.
Warner said on Thursday night, “It is astonishing, too, that President Trump would fire the nonpartisan, experienced leader of the National Security Agency 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.”
Haugh met last month with Elon Musk, whose “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, has roiled the federal government by slashing personnel and budgets at dozens of agencies. In a statement, the NSA said the meeting was intended to ensure both organizations were “aligned” with the new administration’s priorities.
Haugh had led both the NSA and Cyber Command since 2023. Both departments play leading roles in the nation’s cybersecurity. The NSA also supports the military and other national security agencies by collecting and analysing a vast amount of data and information globally.
Cyber Command is known as America’s first line of defence in cyberspace and also plans offensive cyberoperations for potential use against adversaries. Defence secretary Pete Hegseth recently ordered the office to pause some offensive cyberoperations against Russia, in another sign of how Trump’s administration is transforming the work of the nation’s intelligence community.
