US NSA director Timothy Haugh fired

PHOTO CAPTION: U.S. Air Force General and Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) Timothy Haugh attends a House Intelligence Committee hearing about worldwide threats, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 26, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The director of the U.S. National Security Agency was fired on Thursday, the Washington Post reported, citing two current and one former U.S. officials.

Timothy Haugh, who is also head of U.S. Cyber Command, was dismissed along with his deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, the newspaper said.

Noble was reassigned to a job within the Pentagon's office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, the newspaper said. The NSA is part of the U.S. Defense Department.

The current and former officials cited by the Washington Post said they did not know the reason for Haugh’s dismissal or Noble’s reassignment.

U.S. Cyber Command deputy William Hartmann was named acting NSA director and Sheila Thomas, who was the executive director at the NSA, was named acting deputy, newspaper said.

The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democrat Jim Himes, a ranking member of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and      Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee condemned Haugh's firing.

"It is astonishing that President Trump would fire the nonpartisan, experienced leader of the NSA 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," Warner wrote in a post on X.

Republican President Donald Trump, since taking office on January 20, has fired multiple top officials at U.S. agencies and installed loyalists.

Elon Musk, who is leading the Trump administration's effort to cut and streamline the federal government's workforce, visited the National Security Agency last month to meet Haugh.

The NSA is one of the United States' premier intelligence agencies and uses top-tier, specialized technology and systems to collect and analyze intelligence. U.S. Cyber Command carries out both offensive and defensive operations and monitors the networks of the Department of Defense.

 (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Gerry Doyle)