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. Wendy Noble, the NSA’s Deputy Director, was the agency’s senior civilian leader.
Hours after the firings became public, Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist who met with President Trump this week, took credit for their removals.
"Thank you President Trump for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you," Loomer wrote in a social media post. "And thank you for firing these Biden holdovers."
"NSA Director Tim Haugh and his deputy Wendy Noble have been disloyal to President Trump," she added. "That is why they have been fired."
Loomer, who has spread false conspiracy theories that the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” did not cite specific examples of when they had been disloyal to Trump. She said they could not be trusted because they were Biden appointees.
Haugh and Noble are career officials who have spent decades working under Republican and Democratic administrations. Haugh has spent more than 30 years in the Air Force, primarily in intelligence and cyber positions. Nobles joined the NSA in 1987 and has worked her way up in the agency since then.
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.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said removing Haugh was “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.
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."
Earlier Thursday, NBC News reported that Trump fired at least three National Security Council officials this week after far-right activist Laura Loomer met with him and expressed dissatisfaction with some officials on his national security team.
Loomer’s apparent role in the firing of senior NSC officials and the top two leaders of the NSA carries echoes of how far-right influencers sought to ferret out alleged political enemies during Trump’s first term in office.
Eight years ago, far-right online commentators singled out some staff members on the National Security Council, accusing them without evidence of trying to sabotage Trump's agenda. The online attacks, which included threats of violence, were disconcerting to career military officers and civil servants who were accustomed to working anonymously under presidents from both parties.
But the online targeting mostly failed to force out the middle-ranking staffers. Senior officials such as retired Gen. H.R. McMaster, who served as national security advisor, and retired Gen. John Kelly, who eventually became Trump's chief of staff, managed to prevent some far-right activists from having easy access to the White House.
Two officials who worked in the administration in Trump’s first term, and a Republican official who has worked with the administration in both terms, told NBC News they believe Loomer would have been kept out of the Oval then.
