U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco speaks as Attorney General Merrick Garland looks on after announcing an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, U.S., May 23, 2024.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Friday demanded that Microsoft fire Lisa Monaco, an executive who served as deputy attorney general during the Biden administration.
The request appeared on Trump’s Truth Social account, which has 10 million followers. It comes one day after former FBI Director James Comey was indicted, days after Trump pushed to prosecute him.
“She is a menace to U.S. National Security, especially given the major contracts that Microsoft has with the United States Government,” Trump wrote in the post. “Because of Monaco’s many wrongful acts, the U.S. Government recently stripped her of all Security Clearances, took away all of her access to National Security Intelligence, and banned her from all Federal Properties.”
Microsoft declined to comment.
Parts of the U.S. government use Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and productivity software. Earlier this month, Microsoft agreed to offer $3.1 billion in savings in one year on cloud services for agencies to use.
Earlier on Friday, Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo published an X post about Monaco joining Microsoft. The appointment happened in July, according to Monaco’s LinkedIn profile. The post contained a link to a July article on the University of Chicago law school’s website.
On Thursday, Microsoft said it would cut off cloud-based storage and artificial intelligence subscriptions to a unit of the Israeli military, after investigating a claim that the division had built a system to track Palestinians’ phone calls.
On Monday, Trump is set to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, NBC News reported.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella attended a dinner alongside other technology executives at the White House earlier this month.
