Pentagon Intelligence Chief, Two Senior Commanders Dismissed in Latest Shake-Up by Trump Administration

Washington — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed the head of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency and two other senior commanders, three American officials told Reuters on Friday, marking the latest round of sweeping leadership changes under President Donald Trump.

Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was among those removed. The other officers dismissed include the chief of the U.S. Naval Reserves and the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, according to officials familiar with the matter. The reasons for their removal remain unclear.

“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The dismissals were first reported by The Washington Post and appear to continue a pattern of purges targeting senior military, intelligence, and law enforcement officials whose assessments have clashed with Trump’s positions.

Earlier this year, Trump dismissed Air Force General C.Q. Brown, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an unprecedented shake-up that also saw five other admirals and generals removed from top Pentagon posts. In April, General Timothy Haugh was fired as director of the National Security Agency, part of a broader turnover that included more than a dozen staff at the White House National Security Council.

The latest move follows controversy over a leaked preliminary DIA assessment that concluded U.S. airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22 had delayed Tehran’s program by only a few months—contradicting Trump’s public claim that the targets were “obliterated.” The leak infuriated the White House, which denounced the assessment as “flat out wrong,” while Trump attacked media outlets reporting on the findings, calling them “FAKE NEWS.”

The Trump administration has defended the dismissals as part of a wider effort to streamline government, reduce federal spending, and confront what it describes as the “politicization or weaponization” of intelligence agencies.

News of Kruse’s firing came just two days after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced she was revoking, on Trump’s orders, the security clearances of 37 current and former intelligence officials. The revocations are part of a wave of similar actions during Trump’s second term, targeting prominent figures including Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris.