President Donald Trump moved quickly to overhaul the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, firing the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard before the end of their terms and eliminating all members of a key advisory group on aviation safety.
Trump’s changes to immigration policy have drawn the most attention within Homeland Security, but he is also making changes to the rest of this massive agency.
Members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee received a memo Tuesday saying the department is eliminating membership from all advisory committees as part of a “commitment to eliminating misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.”
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The Air Safety Committee, mandated by Congress after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, will technically continue to exist, but it will have no members to carry out the work of examination of security issues in airlines and airports. Before Tuesday, the group included representatives from all key industry groups – including airlines and major unions – as well as members of a group associated with victims of the PanAm 103 bombing The vast majority of the group’s recommendations have been adopted over the years.
It was not immediately clear how many other committees had actually been eliminated Tuesday or whether other departments would take similar steps. A similar safety group advises the Federal Railroad Administration on new rules and safety issues in this industry.
“I naively thought, ‘oh, they’re not going to do anything in the new administration that would put safety at risk – aviation safety at risk.’ But I’m not so sure,” said Stephanie Bernstein, whose husband was killed in the bombing and served on the committee.
Adding to Bernstein’s concern is the fact that TSA Administrator David Pekoske was fired even though he was originally appointed by Trump during his first term and was in the middle of what was supposed to be Pekoske’s second five-year term in the position.
Pekoske oversaw the airport’s army of security officers who screen passengers to ensure flight safety. But a recent spate of stowaways discovered aboard flights and hiding in plane wheel wells has renewed questions about aviation security.
The firing of Coast Guard Commander Admiral Linda Fagan eliminated the first female head of the armed forces in office since 2022. The move was met with shock by some Democratic members of Congress. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, credited Fagan with her commitment to addressing a decades-long culture of sexual assault within the Coast Guard and the prestigious Connecticut Service Academy.
Cantwell said in a Tuesday interview on CNN that Fagan’s firing was “appalling.”
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Under Fagan’s leadership, the U.S. Coast Guard apologized in 2023 for failing to take “appropriate action” years ago when it failed to adequately handle cases of sexual assault and harassment at the academy. The department also acknowledged that it failed to widely disclose its six-year internal investigation into dozens of cases from 1988 to 2006, known as Operation Fouled Anchor.
Last year, however, Fagan received bipartisan criticism for not being cooperative enough in congressional investigations into abuses. At a hearing, she tried to assure skeptical and frustrated senators that she was not trying to cover up the branch’s failure to adequately address cases of sexual assault and harassment at the academy and said she was committed to “transparency and accountability” within the Coast Guard while respecting the constraints of an ongoing government surveillance investigation and victims’ privacy concerns.
Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., whose district includes the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., said Fagan made “a fundamental change in the leadership of the Coast Guard” and worked to restore trust and correct ongoing sexual misconduct issues facing the department. .
“President Trump’s unprecedented decision, on day one, to fire a service chief before his planned departure is an abuse of power that maligns Admiral Fagan’s reputation and record,” Courtney said in a statement.
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Courtney noted that under Fagan’s leadership, the Coast Guard exceeded its 2024 recruiting goal for the first time since 2017, intercepted more than $2.5 billion in illegal drugs from bad actors in 2024 and demonstrated an aggressive commitment to countering adversaries in the Arctic by defending the ICE Compact. to speed up production of new icebreakers, which the United States has not built in almost 50 years.
“The commander’s exceptional record completely negates the President’s blatantly false claims and demonstrates his continued focus on putting politics ahead of the best interests of our military and national security.”
In addition to the layoffs, Trump will also name a new administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he has harshly criticized for how it responded to disasters like Hurricane Helene last fall and the wildfires forest in California. It is customary for the head of this agency to be replaced each time a new president takes office.
Associated Press writers Susan Haigh and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.
