Tulsi Gabbard said she has ordered that more than 100 intelligence officers from 15 agencies be fired for their alleged participation in sexually explicit conversations on a National Security Agency chat tool.
“They were brazen in using an NSA platform intended for professional use to conduct this kind of really, really horrific behavior,” the director of national intelligence told Fox News host Jesse Watters in an interview Tuesday.
The chat tool is intended for conversations about sensitive security matters, but some employees reportedly used it to discuss sexual themes including kinks.
Gabbard said her directive would see that the security clearances of the involved staff are revoked, in addition to their termination.
Details about the content of the chats were first reported Monday by Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and researcher affiliated with the Manhattan Institute.
The NSA said in a statement Tuesday that it was “aware of posts that appear to show inappropriate discussions by [intelligence community] personnel.“
“Potential misuse of these platforms by a small group of individuals does not represent the community,” the NSA said.
Gabbard’s deputy chief of staff, Alexa Henning, said in a statement posted to X that her office instructed all intelligence agencies to identify any employees who participated in the “NSA’s ‘obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit’ chatrooms” and fire them by Friday.
During her interview with Watters, Gabbard characterized her decision as part of a wider effort by President Donald Trump‘s administration to purge the intelligence community of elements he claims are acting against the national interest by establishing their own parallel power structure, which some conservatives and conspiracy theorists call the “deep state.”
Fox News hammed up that angle during Gabbard’s appearance.
Watters’ producers added a chryon reading “Tulsi Cracks Down on Deep State Sex Chat” while the host referred to the “transgender sex chats”—the NSA conversations included discussions about gender transition surgery, according to officials.
In its nascent crackdowns on intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the Trump administration has targeted Federal Bureau of Investigation officials who probed the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The Central Intelligence Agency is currently planning a mass firing of officials who work on recruiting and diversity. Since taking office, Trump has ordered departments and agencies across the federal government to shut down equity initiatives.
“Today’s action, in holding these individuals accountable, is just the beginning of what we are seeing across the Trump administration,” Gabbard told Watters.
She described what she said was Trump’s mandate for the intelligence community: “Clean house, root out that rot and corruption and weaponization and politicization so we can start to rebuild trust in these institutions that are charged with an important mission of serving the American people, ensuring our safety, security, and freedom.”
