Trump administration fires director of National Security Agency

By Sean Lyngaas, Katie Bo Lillis and Alayna Treene, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration has fired the director and deputy director of the National Security Agency, the United States’ powerful cyber intelligence bureau, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation, members of the Senate and House intelligence committees and two former officials familiar with the matter.

The dismissal of Gen. Timothy Haugh, who also leads US Cyber Command — the military’s offensive and defensive cyber unit — is a major shakeup of the US intelligence community which is navigating significant changes in the first two months of the Trump administration. Wendy Noble, Haugh’s deputy at NSA, was also removed, according to the former officials and lawmakers.

The top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committee, Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, denounced the firing of Haugh, who served in the roles since February 2024, in statements on Thursday night.

Lt. Gen. William Hartman, an experienced military officer and the deputy of Cyber Command, is expected to serve as acting head of the command and NSA, the two former officials said.

The news of the dismissals comes as the White House also fired multiple staff members on the National Security Council on Thursday, after Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who once claimed 9/11 was an inside job, urged President Donald Trump during a Wednesday meeting to do so, arguing that they were disloyal.

Loomer, who brought a list with roughly a dozen names of people she deemed insufficient in their support of Trump, also advocated for the firing of Haugh and Noble, two sources familiar with the meeting told CNN.

During the meeting, Loomer told the president that Haugh specifically should be fired because he was handpicked by the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. Haugh was nominated in 2023, while Milley was serving, to head up the NSA and Cyber Command.

In a social media post overnight Loomer said, “NSA Director Tim Haugh and his deputy Wendy Noble have been disloyal to President Trump. That is why they have been fired. As a Biden appointee, General Haugh had no place serving in the Trump admin given the fact that he was HAND PICKED by General Milley.” She went on, “Thank you President Trump for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you and thank you for firing these Biden holdovers.”

Loomer did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on Haugh and Noble’s dismissals, however, she told CNN on Thursday that it “was an honor to meet with President Trump and present him with my findings, I will continue working hard to support his agenda, and I will continue reiterating the importance of strong vetting, for the sake of protecting the President and our national security.”

Cyber Command and the NSA declined to comment and referred CNN to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which could not be immediately reached for comment. CNN has requested comment from the White House National Security Council.

Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, called the move “insane” and said he hasn’t received an explanation for the decision in a strong reaction on “CNN News Central” Friday morning.

“You’re talking about a moment where you would not want to destabilize the national security agency, and this is exactly what the president has done, without any explanation to any of us, except to listen to Laura Loomer. And you know this is just more again, just pure chaos instead of common sense,” Gottheimer told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

Last month, Haugh hosted billionaire Elon Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Efficiency, at the NSA and Cyber Command headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland.

Some current and former defense officials say there is a growing culture of fear inside the officer ranks within the Defense Department, among officials who worry that they could be fired at any moment for conduct deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump.

Haugh was not in the now-infamous group chat on the messaging app Signal, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top officials discussed a sensitive military operation targeting the Houthis in Yemen while unaware that a journalist was part of the group. At a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week where Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were grilled about the Signal group chat debacle, Haugh testified that, in general, there are risks to using the app.

NSA is one of the US government’s most powerful and critical spy agencies. Its code breakers and computer operatives conduct intelligence operations all over the world that provide insights to the president and his top advisers. Cyber Command was established over a decade ago to combat growing foreign threats in cyberspace and has matured considerably in the years since.

Cyber Command has taken on a prominent role in defending US elections from foreign influence and interference, including by knocking a Russian troll farm offline in the 2018 election and defending against Iranian hackers in the 2020 election.

Renée Burton, a cybersecurity expert who spent more than two decades at NSA, called the news of Haugh and Burton’s ouster “alarming.”

“NSA mission is vast and extremely complicated,” Burton told CNN. “General Haugh and Ms. Noble have built the expertise and credibility it takes to oversee such a vital part of our national security. Replacing them will not be easy and the disruption will expose the country to new risk.”

In an unprecedented purge of the military’s senior leadership in February, Trump fired the top US general just moments before Hegseth fired the chief of the US Navy and the vice chief of the Air Force.

This story has been updated with additional details.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.