Government cuts ordered by the Trump administration have been hit by the CIA
According to three people who were described as shooting, some officers hired over the past two years have been summoned away from the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and were asked by security officers to waive their qualifications.
The firing is designed to ull the ranks of newly hired officers, also known as “probation employees.”
An agency spokesperson confirmed that some officers hired over the past two years have been fired.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a ranking Democrat for the Senate Intelligence Email Committee, said reports of newly hired agents being fired are both troublesome and “will undermine our national security.”
“It's crazy,” Warner said. “We've finally gotten recruited, but now new agents aren't confident that their work will not be ruled out after going through the years of their process to get trained.”
It is not clear how many officers will be given up, but those familiar with the effort said that not all recent employment will be rejected.
Officers were unable to tell them why they were being summoned, but few people were suspicious of what was going on amid the shootings of the entire US government.
In fact, some young agency executives working within Langley were hesitant to answer their phones. It was worried that it would get a call from security to report to offsite locations. According to some of those who have been described about the situation, the shootings have disrupted morale and reduced productivity this week.
A spokesperson said the CIA is reviewing personnel who have joined the agency within the past two years. CIA officials handled a fast-paced, stressful situation, and the spokeswoman said, adding that it's not for anyone.
Other officials said the shooting was based on performance.
However, others said there appears to be fewer shootings in key areas, such as gathering information about drug cartels in China and Mexico.
Warner said he hopes the Senate Intelligence Email Committee will consider shootings and whether they are based on performance or more arbitrary.
The shooting comes days after a federal judge paved the way for CIA director John Ratcliffe to free fire employees. Judge Anthony J. Trangga of the Eastern District of Virginia had awarded cases brought on by officers assigned to diversity and recruitment efforts in the Biden administration.
Judge Trenga said Mr Ratcliffe had the power to remove CIA officers for any reason without the right to appeal, and refused to argue that the officers' legitimate rights to the 14th Fourteenth Amendment or the right to speak in the First Amendment were violated.
After considering the judge's ruling, the CIA's general counsel allowed Mr. Ratcliffe to continue to scale back the agency. However, Kevin Carroll, an attorney who represents the fired agent's employees, said Judge Trenga had strongly encouraged Ratcliffe to allow fired employees to sue them for fire.
These recruiters were some of the most successful agents, according to former staff. In 2024, the CIA made its best recruitment effort since September 11, 2001, since months of the terrorist attack.
But now those recruiters and the executives they bring in are at risk of losing their jobs.
The CIA regulations and procedures for denying probation employees differ from those reviewed by Judge Trenga. However, it is not clear whether the agency is following these procedures or relying on Mr. Ratcliffe's extensive power to dismiss who he wants.
CIA officers have been on official probation for four years. However, the Human Resources Administration focuses on blocking more recent recruitment.
The first two years of the CIA executive career are periods of intense training, with government spending a lot of money teaching spy trade, language and other skills.
More experienced officers moving to the CIA from other intelligence agencies are also facing longer probationary periods. Warner said that if layoffs affect these executives, they would effectively waste years of training investment.
“If you're at another intelligence reporting agency and you're moving to a CIA on probation, so you could be losing someone we've invested millions of dollars,” Warner said.
Last month, the CIA sent a list of employees with less than two years of experience to the Human Resources Administration via unclassified email, complying with the White House order to reduce the number of federal workers.
The list only included the first name and final initials, but former officials said sending to an unclassified email system created an anti-intelligence risk.
The former official said removing the newly hired officers would ultimately create gaps and undermine efforts to gather information and analyze a wide range of areas.
