Trump fires NSA director, deputy and ‘at least’ five NSC aides – News

President Donald Trump has fired General Timothy Haugh, the director of the U.S. National Security Agency.

The dismissal was first reported by the Washington Post on Thursday. A few hours later, the top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees confirmed the development. Haugh’s dismissal reportedly came a day after a White House meeting in which far-right activist Laura Loomer urged Trump to fire him.

The director of the NSA also heads the U.S. Cyber Command. Haugh was fired from that role as well, the Post reported. Trump has likewise dismissed Haugh’s civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, along with “at least five” key National Security Council aides. Noble was reportedly reassigned to a different role at the Pentagon’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

The Senate confirmed Haugh as the head of the NSA and Cyber Command in 2023. The NSA is responsible for collecting signals intelligence, information about threats that is extracted from signals such as radio transmissions and internet traffic. Additionally, the agency carries out cyber operations against state-backed hacking groups.

The NSA occasionally releases open-source technologies that help improve cybersecurity in the private sector. One of the agency’s most notable open-source contributions is SELinux. It’s a Linux kernel module that prevents applications from accessing sensitive operating system features. Android uses a modified version of the software to secure user apps. 

The Cyber Command, the other organization that Haugh led, conducts cyber operations against hackers similarly to the NSA. It reportedly works to disrupt not only state-backed threat actors but also cybercriminals backed by those actors. Additionally, Cyber Command helps secure the U.S. Defense Department’s networks.

The firing of Haugh and Noble comes weeks after the Trump administration dismissed more than 130 employees from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. CISA helps protect critical infrastructure from cyberattacks. It publishes guidance on how to fend off hacking campaigns, provides cybersecurity training and performs related tasks.

According to News, some of the affected CISA employees were part of the agency’s red team. The team finds weak points in critical infrastructure networks by simulating cyberattacks. The job cuts reportedly also affected dozens of staffers focused on incident response and “continuous monitoring.”

Shortly after the layoffs, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate more than 130 former probationary employees at CISA. Those are workers who were hired or promoted in the past three years. In response to the ruling, the CISA stated it would place rehired staffers on administrative leave. 

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