Admiral Mike Rogers. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

National Security Agency head Admiral Mike Rogers is retiring in the spring, he reportedly told staffers in a “classified memo” Friday.

The memo has since leaked to NPR and Politico, among others. It’s a fitting end to Rogers’s four-year tenure at the NSA, which was marked by high-profile intelligence leaks and his efforts to prevent them.

Brought on in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s bombshell NSA leaks, Rogers was tasked with making sure nothing of the sort ever happened again. But he wasn’t successful.

Rogers later ran afoul of the Obama administration in the waning days of 2016 when he met with then-president-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower. The Washington Post reported at the time that Obama administration officials were lobbying the president to dismiss Rogers over the “unprecedented” move. He held on to his job though, which includes running the U.S. Cyber Command in addition to overseeing the NSA.

Though he stayed on under President Trump, Rogers didn’t always see eye to eye with his new boss. Trump reportedly asked him last year to publicly state that his campaign did not collude with Russia, but Rogers wouldn’t do it. His replacement is expected to be announced this month.</s>Adm. Mike Rogers — known around Washington for a gruff style — has struggled at times both to regain the public’s trust and to keep more secret details about the government’s spying tools under wraps. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo NSA's Rogers to retire this spring

NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers has decided he will retire this spring, two former U.S. intelligence officials told POLITICO, ending a near four-year tenure bookended by major leaks that rattled the agency.

It's expected that President Donald Trump will nominate Rogers' successor this month, putting a final Senate confirmation vote two to three months away. The pending departure ends well over a year of rumors that the NSA chief was on his way out — willingly or not.

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The Navy admiral was brought in to head the NSA in 2014 after former government contractor Edward Snowden made the agency’s spying tools front-page news. He was immediately tasked with implementing some internal surveillance restraints amid outcries over the country’s collection of Americans’ personal information.

But Rogers — known around Washington for a gruff style — has struggled at times both to regain the public’s trust and to keep more secret details about the government’s spying tools under wraps. And morale at the agency has reportedly suffered, with many senior hackers and analysts leaving to collect big paychecks in the private sector.

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Just this past year, the NSA has been dealing with the online leak of its top-secret hacking tools by a mysterious group known as the Shadow Brokers. Despite the arrest of three NSA contractors or employees, there has been no public indication that the agency believes it has found the culprit.

Still, Rogers has lasted beyond the typical three-year assignment for NSA leaders, and has played an instrumental role in building up the military’s cyber warfighting unit, known as U.S. Cyber Command, which Rogers also oversees.

Under Rogers’ watch, the Pentagon’s offensive cyber unit, once reliant on NSA resources and staff, will soon stand on its own and be granted the status of a “unified combatant command,” on par with long-standing military units like Central Command. And by the end of the 2018 fiscal year, Cyber Command is scheduled to reach full operational capability with 6,200 staffers across 133 teams.

Rogers’ departure fits with a timeline a congressional aide told POLITICO last month, although there had been chatter that the admiral would stay on until the end of the 2018 fiscal year to steer Cyber Command’s critical expansion.

That Rogers would have been able to dictate his own retirement would have seemed remarkable in mid-2016, when news outlets reported that the Obama administration’s senior defense and intelligence leaders were imploring the White House to dismiss Rogers over the series of high-profile leaks of classified documents, as well as a slow start to the digital war against the Islamic State.

Obama administration officials were also miffed that Rogers had met with then-President-elect Trump — ostensibly to discuss a job in the incoming administration — without notifying his supervisors or the White House.

Since being retained by the Trump administration, Rogers has also angered some Capitol Hill lawmakers by declining to say whether the commander in chief had asked him to downplay the ongoing investigations into an election-year disinformation campaign the U.S. has blamed on Russia.

Internally, Rogers also caused some friction in 2016 with the controversial decision to merge the agency’s offensive wing with its defensive teams. The reshuffling is meant to acknowledge the changing online landscape, where discovering software flaws is increasingly critical to both offensive hacking and bolstering digital defenses. But some employees and privacy advocates expressed concerns about mixing foreign espionage-focused units with the teams that protect American networks.

Still, the admiral has retained broad support on Capitol Hill and is widely respected in the national security community. And Rogers’ proponents and detractors agree that his time at the helm will leave a mark on both the NSA and Cyber Command for years to come.

Top contenders to replace Rogers include Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville, who has been brought on as a deputy at Cyber Command to handle issues related to the outfit’s elevation; Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Vincent R. Stewart, who was recently installed as Cyber Command’s other deputy; Army Cyber Command chief Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone; and Navy Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, who currently commands the United States Fleet Cyber Command and U.S. 10th Fleet.</s>NSA chief Mike Rogers expected to retire from agency in spring

Mike Rogers, director of the US National Security Agency, reportedly announced to agency staff Friday that he is planning to retire this spring, Sputnik reported.

According to reports, Rogers indicated that a successor will be nominated and approved by the US Senate by the end of January.

​The announcement was broken to the media when Ellen Nakashima, a Washington Post reporter, tweeted that Rogers gave his colleagues advance notice of his intention to depart from the agency.</s>
• National Security Agency director Adm. Mike Rogers announced he is retiring this spring.
• President Donald Trump is said to nominate a successor later this month.

National Security Agency director Adm. Mike Rogers announced he is retiring this spring, according to multiple news reports published Friday.

President Donald Trump is said to nominate a successor later this month, and could trigger a lengthy Senate confirmation process that is expected to be completed in two to three weeks, according to Politico.

Rogers served four years as the head of the intelligence agency. His pending departure comes amid reports that a wave of skilled personnel are also leaving the agency. Hundreds of hackers, engineers, and data scientists, were said to have left the agency since 2015, in part because of low pay and internal frutstrations among staff, The Washington Post reported.

Rogers, who was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2014, dealt with the fallout from NSA whitsleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks of classified material to journalists.

Rogers was at the helm during several scandals at the NSA, including most recently, the leaking of an intelligence report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election by the 25-year old former contractor, Reality Winner.</s>Admiral Mike Rogers reportedly plans to retire from his post as director of the National Security Agency, leaving the agency amid attacks from Donald Trump and battles with Trump’s administration.

The report comes from John Schindler, a security expert and former NSA analyst and columnist for the Observer. Schindler noted that Rogers has told the NSA workforce of his plans to retire.

“BREAKING: Embattled DIRNSA ADM Mike Rogers tells NSA workforce of his plans to retire,” Schindler tweeted on Thursday afternoon.

Schindler did not specify when Rogers was expected to retire.

Rogers reportedly clashed with Trump regarding the Russia investigation. Reports claimed that Trump leaned on Rogers to absolve him of any wrongdoing in the ongoing Russia probe. As Newsweek reported in June, an NSA memo documented a call from Trump in which he pressured Rogers to make a public statement saying there was no evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia. Rogers refused.

The memo noted that Trump had continued to question the findings of the American intelligence community that Russia had interfered in the election. The NSA was among the agencies issuing a joint report last year finding that Russian agencies committed cyber attacks in order to help turn the election in Trump’s favor.

Schindler has previously shared reports from the inner workings of the NSA, including a report that Rogers admitted privately that Trump did, in fact, collude with Russia. As Schindler wrote in the Observer, Rogers said in a town hall with NSA officials that they have “evidence of election involvement and questionable contacts with the Russians.”

In 2017, Rogers spent extensive time testifying before Congress about the Russian election interference. Donald Trump has continued to deny any allegations that he colluded with Russia, often attacking the reports and claiming there is a “deep state” conspiracy against him.

Trump leveled some direct attacks against the NSA, even comparing them to Russian spies in one Twitter rant in February.

A report in March claimed that Trump’s attacks on the NSA were hurting morale across the agency. Reuters claimed that Trump’s attacks were hurting recruitment efforts for the agency.

“The National Security Agency risks a brain-drain of hackers and cyber spies due to a tumultuous reorganization and worries about the acrimonious relationship between the intelligence community and President Donald Trump, according to current and former NSA officials and cybersecurity industry sources,” the report noted.

There may be signs that Trump is mending bridges with the NSA, as the president announced plans to bestow the prestigious National Security Medal on NSA official Rick Ledgett, who had retired last year.

Mike Rogers has not commented publicly on reports that he plans to retire as director of the NSA.</s>National Security Agency director Adm. Mike Rogers announced he is retiring this spring, according to multiple news reports published Friday.

President Donald Trump is said to nominate a successor later this month, and could trigger a lengthy Senate confirmation process that is expected to be completed in two to three weeks, according to Politico.

Rogers served four years as the head of the intelligence agency. His pending departure comes amid reports that a wave of skilled personnel are also leaving the agency. Hundreds of hackers, engineers, and data scientists, were said to have left the agency since 2015, in part because of low pay and internal frustrations among staff, The Washington Post reported. –READ MORE</s>UFILE PHOTO: U.S. National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers testifies before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on foreign cyber threats, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 5, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers has announced plans to retire this spring and has said he expected a successor to be nominated and approved by the U.S. Senate this month, according to a report on Friday.

Rogers, who heads the U.S. Cyber Command, made the announcement to agency staff, a Washington Post reporter said in a post on Twitter. NSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</s>Reuters is reporting that NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers has announced to his staff he is resigning, and that a nominee will be announced to replace him shortly.

It took us a while to figure it out, but now that we have become aware of his place in history, Rogers departure makes sense. His incredible accomplishments are complete.

In hindsight it appears that President Trump was fully aware when the tide would change. The moment when an empowered group of congressional people would develop the coordinated plan to defeat the corruption amid a corrupt intelligence apparatus Admiral Rogers had been holding back for the past several years.

Everyone was trying to figure out what the president meant. The media went bananas for a few cycles talking about it. However, a picture from that evening –in addition to the recent discoveries– likely tells us all we need to know:

That night, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was seated at the head of the table as each member of the military likely aware -in varying degrees- just how consequential NSA Director Mike Rogers was in fending off the biggest constitutional crisis in the history of the U.S.

A grateful U.S. President, recognizing a great and patriotic man, amid many great and patriotic men. ….And no-one outside that room even knew. Until now.

You know it’s funny…. We all felt the tide change mid-November, something was different. By early December the Inspector General stories about the DOJ and FBI malfeasance and corruption began to hit the headlines (Strzok, Page, Ohr, Baker, etc.); but it only becomes clear today, how that entire chain-of-events began.</s>National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers, the US signals intelligence czar, plans to retire within months after a four-year term scarred by damaging leaks, US intelligence sources confirmed Friday.

Rogers, who has led the NSA and its sister agency, the US Cyber Command, for four years, told staff in an internal letter Friday that he would depart in the spring, with his replacement to be nominated by President Donald Trump this month.

Named to the position in April 2014 by President Barack Obama, Rogers, 58, has almost completed one year under Trump, who has repeatedly delivered withering criticism of the US intelligence community.

Rogers was one of the four US security chiefs who presented a damning report to Trump on January 6, 2017 saying that Russians had interfered in the 2016 presidential election to boost his candidacy.

Trump has ever since refused to concede that conclusion, and Rogers is the only official who attended the meeting who kept his job through Trump's first year.

Besides keeping up US electronic spying, he has also spearheaded the country's ability to conduct offensive cyber operations, via the Cyber Command, a Pentagon unit.

And he has struggled to deal with the leak of ultra-secret NSA hacking tools, some of which are believed to have fallen into the hands of Russians.

Two former NSA hackers have agreed to plead guilty in recent months to charges of removing classified NSA materials to their homes, but neither has been accused of deliberate leaks.

According to a Washington Post report earlier this week, the NSA's 21,000-strong staff is facing a rapid turnover due to unhappiness with a Rogers-led reorganization and poor pay compared to the private sector.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers has announced plans to retire this spring and has said he expected a successor to be nominated and approved by the U.S. Senate this month, according to a report on Friday.

Rogers, who heads the U.S. Cyber Command, made the announcement to agency staff, a Washington Post reporter said in a post on Twitter. NSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
National Security Agency director Admiral Mike Rogers plans to retire this spring. President Donald Trump is expected to nominate a successor later this month.