Army Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd appears to be the Trump administration's pick to fill the months-old vacancy atop the National Security Agency and U.S.Cyber Command. 

On Monday, the White House formally asked the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees to approve Rudd's promotion to the four-star level needed for the double-hat command.

Rudd, who is deputy director for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, appears to not have previously served in military cybersecurity, but a person familiar with the matter confirmed the nomination and said his background would align with U.S. goals to counter Chinese cyber threats.

The Senate received President Donald Trump's nomination of Rudd for the leadership role on Monday, as noted in the Congressional Record. A four-star general is traditionally tapped to lead NSA and Cyber Command in a dual-hatted capacity.

The signals-intelligence titan and combatant command have been without a permanent leader since April, when Gen. Timothy Haugh was fired, apparently on the advice of far-right activist Laura Loomer. Since then, Lt. Gen. William Hartman has led the agency in an acting capacity.

Hartman is expected to retire once a full-time leader is put in place, two people familiar with the matter previously said.

NSA's workforce and morale have been under strain amid leadership gaps, program cuts, and recent extensions of deferred resignation offers, Nextgov/FCW reported last month. It recently achieved its goals to shed around 2,000 people from its workforce this year.

The NSA specializes in hacking and foreign eavesdropping and is deemed a “combat support agency” that faces oversight from both the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Defense Department. Both components get oversight from the Senate’s intelligence and armed services panels.

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The head of Air Mobility Command has been nominated to be the Air Force’s vice chief of staff, and the Oklahoma Air National Guard commander to be the service’s top judge advocate general—nearly 300 days after the previous ones were fired with little to no explanation. 

Gen. John Lamontagne was nominated Monday, according to a Congressional notice. Since 1992, he has accumulated more than 4,000 flight hours as a command pilot in the C-12 aircraft, KC-135 tanker, and C-17 transport. He has served as deputy commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa and as U.S. European Command’s chief of staff. 

Brig. Gen. Christopher Eason is the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s commander and chief of staff. He has served as the Oklahoma ANG’s assistant adjutant general and a state staff judge advocate. He entered the Air Force after graduating from the University of Oklahoma’s law school in 2004. As a civilian, he works as a federal prosecutor.

Neither Air Mobility Command or the Air Force headquarters provided comment on the nomination by publication time. 

If confirmed, Lamontagne will serve under Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, who was sworn in last month after Gen. David Allvin announced his sudden retirement in August. 

He would take office at a time of change for the service. Wilsbach and Air Force Troy Meink have been unraveling Biden-era changes intended to help prepare for a war with China, while keeping intact programs to develop various weapons, including the Sentinel ICBM, the B-21 bomber, the F-47 fighter jet, and drone wingmen. 

Lamontagne is not the first person the Trump administration has nominated to replace the previous vice chief. This summer, the White House nominated Gen. Thomas Bussiere, then-head of Air Force Global Strike Command, but later withdrew the nomination. In September, Bussiere announced his retirement.

“Johnny is an amazing person and will do a great job as the vice,” Bussiere told Defense One in a message on Tuesday.

The Air Force vice chief position has been vacant since Feb. 21, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth purged Gen. James Slife, along with the Joint Chiefs chairman, chief of naval operations, and the judge advocates general of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Hegseth has not publicly explained why he fired Slife, a helicopter pilot and special operations commander. 

But other Republicans had criticized Slife for expressing mild concern about racism while leading Air Force Special Operations Command. In a since-deleted memo in May 2020, Slife wrote “we'd be naive to think issues of institutional racism and unconscious bias don't affect us.”

Hegseth had also purged Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer, the Air Force’s judge advocate general, and his Army and Air Force counterparts. The defense secretary said they were not “well-suited” to their jobs and that he wanted top lawyers who would not act as “roadblocks” to his preferred policies. The purge led Congress to add to the 2026 defense policy act a section requiring an explanation should future JAGs be fired. Maj. Gen. Rebecca Vernon, who had served as the service’s deputy JAG, became acting TJAG earlier this year but stepped away from the job in October and is set to retire by Jan. 1. 

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