Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said on Tuesday that more than 100 intelligence officers from 15 agencies had been fired for having sexually explicit discussions on a government chat tool.

The chat program was administered by the National Security Agency and intended for discussions of sensitive security matters. But a group of employees used it for discussions that contained sexual themes, intelligence officials said this week. The chats also included explicit discussion of gender transition surgery, officials said.

Transcripts of the chat were first disclosed Monday by Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who writes for City Journal.

Appearing Tuesday evening on Fox News, Gabbard said she had issued a directive to fire more than 100 people who participated in the discussions and to strip the officers of their security clearances.

She said the chats were an “egregious violation of trust” that violated “basic rules and standards” of workplace professionalism.

— The New York Times