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- The Trump administration has dismissed Lt. General Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
- In addition, Hegseth has also removed the leaders of the Naval Reserves and Naval Special Warfare.
- A senator commented that these dismissals highlight a troubling pattern of using intelligence positions as loyalty tests.
The decision to remove Kruse and others was announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, marking another wave of personnel purges at the Pentagon under President Donald Trump’s leadership. The specific reasons behind Kruse’s termination are unclear, but reports indicated that Hegseth’s actions extended later into the week, including the removal of the Naval Reserves and Naval Special Warfare Command chiefs.
Sources, speaking anonymously, confirmed that those fired were Kruse, the Reserves chief, and the Naval Special Warfare commander, though their exact dismissals remain unexplained.
Senator Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized this pattern, stating, “The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous tendency to prioritize loyalty over sound intelligence.” The news first broke through the Washington Post.
This series of actions appears aimed at punishing military, intelligence, and law enforcement officials whose views don’t align with Trump’s stance. Earlier in April, Trump ousted NSA Director Timothy Haugh and more than a dozen other officials from the White House’s National Security Council.
Hegseth has also targeted military leaders at the Pentagon. In February, he dismissed Air Force General CQ Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with five other high-ranking admirals and generals—an unprecedented shake-up in U.S. military leadership. The Air Force’s chief recently announced plans to retire early, midway through his term.
Kruse’s firing possibly stemmed from a leaked preliminary DIA assessment suggesting that the June 22 U.S. airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites only delayed Tehran’s program by a few months—contradicting Trump’s claim that the targets were destroyed. Trump was enraged by the leak, dismissing the classified report as “flat out wrong” and attacking news outlets that published it, calling them “scum” and “FAKE NEWS.”
The Trump administration has undertaken a broad purge of officials across military and intelligence sectors, claiming it’s part of a broader effort to reduce government size, cut the federal budget, and counteract what it calls the politicization of intelligence.
Kruse’s dismissal came just days after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revoked the security clearances of 37 current and former U.S. intelligence personnel—another move directed by Trump. These revocations are part of a series, including actions against President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who both lost last year’s elections.
Earlier this week, Gabbard announced a major overhaul of her office, reducing staff by over 40% by October and saving approximately $700 million annually.
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