A White House national security official was fired after sending sometimes insulting messages on Twitter under a fake name, a senior administration official said.

The story about National Security Council Director of Nonproliferation Jofi Joseph was first reported by the Daily Beast.

Joseph was fired for messages sent on the account @natsecwonk, the administration official confirmed to CNN's Jake Tapper.

That account had been deleted Tuesday evening.

The Daily Beast reported the account had been used to send messages to the foreign policy community since 2011. The website said some of the tweets contained messages that insulted top White House officials.

In one, @natsecwonk wrote, "I'm a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me."

In other Twitter messages, the Daily Beast said he was critical of Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and Secretary of State John Kerry.

His messages were also critical of Republicans, foreign policy experts and others.

In one tweet, the Daily Beast said he wrote, "So when will someone do us the favor of getting rid of Sarah Palin and the rest of her white trash family? What utter useless..."

CNN attempted to contact Joseph but has not yet received a response.