The acting director of the National Security Agency tried to protect one of his top scientists from losing his security clearance as Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, prepared to announce the move this week, according to officials briefed on the matter.
The effort failed. Ms. Gabbard, on orders from President Trump, fired the scientist, who was a leading government expert on artificial intelligence, cryptology and advanced mathematics.
The scientist, Vinh Nguyen, was one of 37 current and former national security officials whose security clearances were revoked on Tuesday. Many, though not all, had tangential connections to the intelligence agencies’ review of Russian efforts to influence and meddle in the 2016 election.
Ms. Gabbard has released documents about that intelligence inquiry and accused Obama administration officials of related crimes, an effort Mr. Trump has praised.
Lt. Gen. William J. Hartman, the acting N.S.A. director, called Ms. Gabbard in the days before the revocation and asked to see the evidence that Mr. Nguyen, the agency’s chief data scientist, had done anything that merited the revocation of his security clearance.
Ms. Gabbard rebuffed the request, the officials said. The list of people losing their clearance began to circulate Tuesday morning and was made public in the afternoon.
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