President Trump fired Defense Secretary by a tweet. Several reports suggest that he wants to fire the CIA director, but has not done that yet.
Esper has had a rocky relationship with Trump on several issues, most notably his emphasis at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer that there were no legal grounds to deploy active-service troops on the streets of US cities.
Following his dismissal, reports have surfaced suggesting that the president could now remove CIA Director Gina Haspel from her position. Haspel, a career intelligence officer, was confirmed by the Senate two and a half years ago with bipartisan support. But Trump some of his conservative allies have become increasingly frustrated with Haspel in recent weeks because she has opposed the declassification of documents related to the 2016-era Russia investigation. One document in particular that Haspel opposed disclosing was a memo that detailed an unverified Russian intelligence assessment that Hillary Clinton signed off on a plan to tie Trump to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016. However, the Senate Intelligence Committee immediately rejected the veracity of the information.
Trump is reportedly considering firing FBI Director Christopher Wray, who the president and his allies think has been uncooperative in an effort by Senate Republicans and other investigative bodies to examine the Russia probe, reported Politico.
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