Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has moved to fire more than 100 intelligence officers over explicit chats they allegedly sent around in an internal agency messaging board.
Gabbard, who was confirmed as the nation’s top intelligence official earlier this month, stated that she spearheaded a directive Tuesday to oust the individuals who partook in the explicit conversations using the National Security Agency’s (NSA) “Intelink” platform.
“There are over 100 people from across the intelligence community that contributed to and participated in … what is really just an egregious violation of trust,” Gabbard told Fox News’s Jesse Watters on Tuesday.
“When you see what these people were saying — they were brazen in using an NSA platform intended for professional use to conduct this kind of really, really horrific behavior,” she said during her appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
The messages were uncovered by conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) sent also out a memo instructing all intelligence agencies to “identify the employees who participated in the NSA’s ‘obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit’ chatrooms and to terminate their employment and revoke their security clearances,” ODNI spokesperson Alexa Henning wrote Tuesday on social platform X.
The deadline for sending the information is Feb. 28.
NSA said in a Tuesday statement that the agency is aware of the posts that “appear to show inappropriate discussions” by personnel in the intelligence community (IC), and an internal probe is underway.
“IC collaboration platforms are intended to drive mission outcomes,” the statement reads. “Potential misuse of these platforms by a small group of individuals does not represent the community.”
“Investigations to address this misuse of government systems are ongoing,” they added.
When reached for comment, ODNI pointed The Hill to Gabbard’s comments on Fox News.
