Ratcliffe shrugs off concerns about potential threat of fired agents armed with CIA’s secrets

CIA Director John Ratcliffe is unconcerned by speculation that agents who are fired under Department of Government Efficiency cuts may take the nation’s secrets to foreign adversaries. 

‘Any individual who would be willing to sell the Nation’s secrets to a foreign adversary has no place working at the Agency that plays an incredible role in keeping Americans safe every day,’ Ratcliffe told Fox News Digital in a statement.

CNN reported on Monday that mass firings and buyouts offered to agents were under discussion among CIA ‘top leadership,’ who were apparently worried that losing their jobs might prompt disgruntled former officers to take their classified intelligence to foreign intelligence services like those of China or Russia. 

‘You’re telling me that a professional setback could cause people to risk the consequences of treason and betray their country, and your argument is that those are the kind of people who should stay inside CIA?’ a source familiar with the CIA head’s thinking added to Fox News Digital. 

‘There’s a general sense that it’s more of a justification for maintaining the status quo, but if potential traitors are there, it’s hard to argue the solution is for them to continue maintaining access to the nation’s secrets.’

‘You’re just rolling the dice that these folks are gonna honor their secrecy agreement and not volunteer to a hostile intelligence service,’ an unnamed U.S. official reportedly told CNN. 

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently tried to fire 51 employees who worked on diversity issues, and newer employees are potentially on the chopping block to comply with a government-wide effort to root out probationary employees before they earn civil service protection. 

A judge put the diversity firings on pause after agents sued to stop them. Kevin Carroll, an attorney who represents 19 of the CIA officers affected, said his clients were just ‘regular American intelligence officers’ who had been assigned to complete diversity tasks on a rotational basis or in addition to their day jobs. 

‘Some of these people are like 18 years in, they’re a couple years short of their pensions. So firing them instead of just letting them first look for another job in the agency or elsewhere in the intel community, is a lack of due process,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘These people had regular career paths within the intel community and were slotted into these jobs for a bit. That’s all.’

A judge will determine whether to offer injunctive relief on Thursday. 

The CIA also offered buyouts to employees who offered to resign, in line with a government-wide push to trim the federal workforce, but it’s not clear how many employees were offered and accepted the offer. 

Earlier this month, the agency reportedly sent an unclassified email listing the names of agents, first name and last initial, who had been there less than two years to the White House, prompting concerns those names could fall into the wrong hands. 

Though the exact number of people employed by the CIA is classified, the agency is known to employ thousands who engage in covert collection and analysis of intelligence, both at its Virginia headquarters and overseas.

Foreign adversaries like China and Russia are known to target former U.S. intelligence officials, offering them large sums of money for the classified information they are privy to. The Justice Department has charged multiple former military and intel officials for providing information to China.

The CIA was known for friction with the White House during Trump’s first administration but was hit with a wave of retirements in 2021 and 2022 as those who were recruited after the September 11, 2001, attacks hit their 20-year mark. The agency hit a recruiting high point again in 2024.