A U.S. official confirmed Saturday that the Pentagon has a plan for separating the National Security Agency and Cyber Command.
In his letter to Miller, Smith said the Pentagon has not met conditions set by the 2017 defense bill for severing the NSA from Cyber Command.
The notion of splitting NSA from Cyber Command goes back to the Obama administration, which proposed to elevate the status of Cyber Command by making it a unified military command, taking it from under the purview of U.S. Strategic Command.
That move was approved by President Donald Trump in 2017, and it was foreseen that at some point Cyber Command would split away from the NSA, although such a move had strong opponents in Congress.
It's not clear who the Trump administration might install as head of the NSA if it were split from Cyber Command before President-elect Joe Biden takes office Jan. 20.