The Trump administration, keen to clear out the institutional rot in Washington, D.C., is apparently set to clean house at the federal agency that previously
recruited thousands of Nazis as spies, stole into Senate investigators’ computers, manipulated American news coverage, experimented with brainwashing techniques on unwitting citizens, armed various terrorist groups, dragged its feet on acknowledging the likely source of the COVID-19 virus, allegedly engaged in domestic election interference, and helped orchestrate numerous coups around the world.
The Central Intelligence Agency, now led by former Director of National Intelligence
John Ratcliffe, has reportedly offered buyouts to its entire workforce, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Last week, the White House
issued a memo offering buyouts to roughly 2 million federal workers in an effort to remedy government bloat and save taxpayers money.
Workers were told they could either remain in their current positions, meeting enhanced standards of conduct and working in their physical offices five days a week without any “certainty of their position or agency,” or they could hit the bricks, retaining all pay and benefits until Sept. 30, 2025.
Federal workers serving in positions related to national security were among those initially ineligible for the buyout package, for which the acceptance deadline was Feb. 6; however, an aide to Ratcliffe told the Journal that the CIA director successfully petitioned the White House to similarly extend the offer to workers at his agency.
‘Time to find a new line of work.’
An unnamed source said to be familiar with the offer
told CNN that while all workers at the CIA received the offer, some may yet be ineligible depending on role and area of expertise.
A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency indicated that the move is both part of the CIA director’s efforts to “ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the administration’s national security priorities” and “part of a holistic strategy to infuse the agency with renewed energy.”
Ratcliffe signaled a desire for a competent and hard-nosed workforce during his confirmation hearing last month,
stating:
If confirmed, my leadership at CIA will focus on setting and communicating priorities and demanding relentless execution. Above all, we will be in strict adherence to the CIA’s mission. We will collect intelligence, especially human intelligence, in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult. We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgment or infect our products. We will conduct covert action at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.
Ratcliffe added, “To the brave CIA officers listening around the world, if all of that sounds like what you signed up for, then buckle up and get ready to make a difference. If it does not, then it is time to find a new line of work.”
An aide to the director told the Journal that the CIA is also freezing the hiring of applicants given conditional offers of employment and will likely rescind such offers in cases where job-seekers aren’t well suited to the agency’s new objectives, which apparently include engaging in espionage against countries not traditionally regarded as adversaries to gain an upper hand in trade negotiations, undermining communist China, and taking on Mexican drug cartels.
Fresh off
concern-mongering about the potential demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — who represents thousands of federal workers — blasted the buyout offer, suggesting that bureaucrats should not take the out.
“There’s no statutory authority that I can see for the president making this offer,” Kaine told the Journal. “The administration immediately knows, you don’t want to work for me. They’ll find some other way to get rid of you. You should not raise your hand.”
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