Trump abruptly shakes up NSA leadership amid pressure from right-wing activist

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• Geoff Bennett:

  President Donald Trump abruptly ousted the director and deputy director of the National Security Agency, the country's powerful cyber intelligence bureau. The Pentagon spokesman today issued a statement thanking the director for his decades of service.

  The dismissals came after Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist, urged President Trump to do so. Loomer is a self-described pro-white nationalist who has pushed a number of conspiracy theories. Loomer appeared to confirm her involvement in a post on X, writing: "NSA Director Tim Haugh and his deputy Wendy Noble have been disloyal to President Trump. That is why they have been fired. Thank you, President Trump, for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you. And thank you for firing these Biden holdovers."

  For perspective on all this, we turn now to Stewart Baker. He's a former NSA general counsel and held a senior position in the Department of Homeland Security during the George W. Bush administration.

  Mr. Baker, thanks for being with us.

• Stewart Baker, Former General Counsel, National Security Agency:

  It's a pleasure.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So I want to start with your reaction to the firing of these intelligence officials, apparently for their perceived disloyalty, their personal disloyalty to President Trump.

  The former NSA director, Tim Haugh, we should mention, is a decorated general. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to hold that position. What questions do these firings raise for you?

• Stewart Baker:

  Well, I am deeply skeptical of the idea that there was any disloyalty on the part of General Haugh. I knew him. I did not know Wendy Noble.

  And he struck me as a straight shooter who was just interested in doing his job and who had done it very well. So I think the idea that he was personally disloyal is problematic. I have difficulty believing that. And I suspect Laura Loomer overinterpreted the fact that he was promoted under General Milley in the last administration.

  That's just the way the military works. If you're not promoted in every administration, then you're not going to be rising to the top of any of these agencies.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And the NSA is one of the government's most powerful and most critical spy agencies.

  Help us understand what the director does and how having personal loyalty to any president could undermine or complicate that agency's mission.

• Stewart Baker:

  So, the NSA's job is to intercept communications around the world, including going into computers and stealing information from most computers. They are responsible for the largest amount of intelligence that the president gets every day about what is going on in the world that he's not — that people are trying to hide from him.

  And so it's a vital intelligence agency. I don't think that loyalty should come into it. That is to say, unless you think there's some reason to believe that somebody is actively conspiring against the president, there really shouldn't be much of a call for loyalty.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Could these firings and the reason for them, could this leave U.S. allies to view this country as being a less stable and less reliable partner when it comes to intelligence share?

• Stewart Baker:

  I'm actually not sure that that's the case.

  We have political appointees at the CIA who change when the president changes. That is not true of NSA, but I'm not sure our allies are doing a fine-grain analysis to say, oh, is this going to somehow change the basic American system?

  So, I think this is just part of some of the chaos that they have seen and they have certainly been caught up in. They will be worried, but this doesn't strike me as something that will worry them. I'm a little more concerned that this will encourage our adversaries to say, look, there's daylight between the president and his premier intelligence collection agency.

  What can we do to make him hate them more so that they will — so he will degrade their capabilities? And that, I think, is a worry. We're coming up in a year on having to reauthorize the Section 702 program that is essential to our ability to catch people who are acting against the U.S. interest inside the United States, foreign governments that are influencing people inside the United States.

  And if that program is not reauthorized, it will cripple many of our capabilities. If I were a foreign adversary, I would be doubling down on, yes, the whole agency is disloyal, Mr. President, and you should cut out their capabilities by not reauthorizing the powers that they have.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So, you mentioned Section 702 earlier. For folks who are unaware, explain what that is.

• Stewart Baker:

  It is a program that allows us to find people in the United States who are communicating with intelligence targets, terrorists outside the United States. It is a relatively new program, and it has to be reauthorized every few years. That's coming up in a year.

  If I were a foreign agency, I would want to find a way to make sure that didn't happen.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Stewart Baker, thank you for your insights this evening. We appreciate it.

• Stewart Baker:

  All right. Great to talk to you.