By: Maria-Paula

The top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees confirmed late Thursday night that the head of both the National Security Agency and U.S Cyber Command, Gen. Timothy Haugh, together with his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, had been fired by the Trump administration.

Sources familiar with the matter, including the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, and Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, disclosed Haugh’s removal from the spy agencies.

“General Haugh has served our country in uniform, with honor and distinction, for more than 30 years. 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? It is astonishing, too, that President Trump would fire the nonpartisan, experienced leader of the National Security Agency while still failing to hold any member of his team accountable for leaking classified information on a commercial messaging app – even as he apparently takes staffing direction on national security from a discredited conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office,” said Sen. Warner.

Following Haugh’s firing, both former and current administration officials have speculated on reasons that led to Trump dropping the general after more than 30 years of service to the American people in the military.

Had General Haugh opposed one of Mr. Trump’s initiatives, perhaps moved too slowly on purging officers who had worked on diversity issues? Or was he a casualty of the administration’s shifting priorities to counter narcotics?

Laura Loomer, a fervent Trump supporter, on the other hand, has publicly said she advocated for the firings during a meeting with the President a day before the officials were fired.

Far-right activist Loomer, pressed for the dismissals of a number of officials besides Haugh and Noble — in particular, National Security Council staff whose views she saw as disloyal to the president.

“I predict you are going to see some nonsense statement about some policy difference or something General Haugh wasn’t doing, but we all know what happened,” said Senator Angus King, a Maine independent who is on the intelligence and armed services committees. “Laura Loomer said it. She is the one who told Trump to fire him.”( New York Times)