LATEST FIRING
The move appeared to be the latest attempt by the Trump administration to penalise current and former military, intelligence and law enforcement officials whose views have been seen as at odds with Trump.
In April, Trump fired General Timothy Haugh as director of the National Security Agency, in a purge that included more than a dozen staff at the White House national security council.
Hegseth has also gone after uniformed military officials at the Pentagon. In February, he fired Air Force General CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was dismissed along with five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership.
The chief of the US Air Force made a surprise announcement on Monday that he planned to retire only halfway through his tenure.
While it was not clear exactly why Kruse was fired, it comes after a preliminary DIA assessment leaked to the news media that said the Jun 22 US airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities had set Tehran’s program back only a few months, a finding contradicting Trump’s claim that the targets were “obliterated.”
The leaking of the assessment, which Reuters also reported, enraged Trump. The White House denounced the top-secret assessment as “flat out wrong,” and Trump attacked CNN, the New York Times and other outlets that obtained the report, calling them “scum” and “FAKE NEWS.”
The Trump administration has conducted a sweeping purge of US military and intelligence officers and diplomats that it says is part of an effort to slash the size of the US government, shrinking the federal budget and punishing what it describes as the “politicisation or weaponisation” of intelligence.