President Donald Trump on the first day of his administration stripped the security clearances of a number of anti-Trump former officials, including retired Gen. Michael Hayden, an adviser to Newsguard, the establishment pro-censorship group operating a news blacklist against conservatives.

Trump’s removed 50 security clearances, including former CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) Director and retired Air Force General Michael Hayden.

Hayden is a controversial public figure, even for those in the Never Trump camp.

For instance, he called Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) to be removed from the “human race” in a social media post in late October 2023.

Hayden is also an adviser for Newsguard, an organization that ranks the alleged reliability of news outlets via a browser extension. Newsguard portrays itself as neutral; however, it favors left-leaning, corporate-owned media outlets, even if they publish verifiable disinformation without corrections, and often target right-leaning news outlets. In practice, it is a blacklisting tool aimed squarely at conservatives and a cornerstone of what Trump FCC Chairman Brendar Carr calls the Censorship Cartel.

In March 2022, Hayden had yet to retract his claim that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “Russian disinformation,” despite serving on the board of Newsguard, which claims to target disinformation and false information spread by media outlets and public figures.

Later in the same year, Hayden agreed that even compared to other movements, Republicans are the most “nihilistic, dangerous, and contemptible.” Some of the other groups compared to Republicans includde Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Chinese Communist Party.

“I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close,” Financial Times associate editor Michael Luce said at the time.

“I agree,” Hayden said. “And I was the CIA director.”

In November 2023, Hayden spent his Thanksgiving week compared patriot Americans Christians to Hamas.

“No different at all,” Hayden said.