Democrats on Friday expressed outrage that US President Donald Trump had fired the head of the highly sensitive US National Security Agency (NSA) at the apparent urging of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
Loomer, who is known for claiming that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were an inside job, is reported to have pushed for the dismissal of various senior US security officials, including NSA director Air Force General Timothy Haugh, putting her in an unprecedented position of influence over some of the most secretive and powerful parts of the government.
Senior military leaders were on Thursday informed of the firing of Haugh, who also oversaw the US Cyber Command, officials said.
Photo: Reuters
They received no advance notice about the decision to remove a four-star general with a 33-year career in intelligence and cyberoperations, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel decisions.
“I am alarmed and angered that, at the insistence of a far-right conspiracy theorist, President Trump dismissed one of the most skilled, accomplished officers in the US military,” US Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, said in a statement.
Democratic US Senator Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, referred to the Trump administration’s inadvertent inclusion of a journalist in a Signal group chat on plans for Yemen airstrikes in his criticism of Haugh’s dismissal.
“It’s so crazy it defies belief: Trump refused to fire the people that embarrassed America and risked service members’ lives in the Signalgate scandal, but fired Gen. Haugh, a nonpartisan national security expert, at the advice of a self-described ‘pro-white nationalist,’” Warner wrote on X.
It is unclear who is in charge of the NSA and the Cyber Command.
Also fired was Haugh’s civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble.
Loomer early on Friday — after Haugh’s firing was reported — wrote on X that Haugh and Noble “have been disloyal to President Trump. That is why they have been fired.”
Additional reporting by AP
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