Summary

The CIA has reportedly offered buyouts to its entire workforce as part of efforts to align with Trump’s national security priorities.

The agency is also freezing conditional job offers, potentially rescinding those not fitting its new focus on drug cartels, Trump’s trade war, and countering China.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s office says the move is part of a broader strategy to reshape the agency.

This follows Trump’s wider government downsizing plan, which includes mass federal buyouts and aligns with Project 2025’s goal of replacing workers with political appointees.

  • teft@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    Nothing could possibly go wrong by putting thousands of disaffected spies into your civilian work force…

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      14 hours ago

      Better fix that by putting a Russian asset in charge of national intelligence.

  • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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    15 hours ago

    Surely this would be an absolute intelligence clusterfuck for the US if the entire CIA staff just… left.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Only if you think that the U.S. having an intelligence-gathering capacity is a good thing. I’m guessing Putin is not in favor of it.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        14 hours ago

        With Trump as President and Tulsi Gabbard in charge of national intelligence, Putin probably doesn’t mind because he’ll get the intelligence soon enough anyway.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          Probably. But you dismantle the CIA and everyone will want a piece of the U.S. and try to take it.

          • MCasq_qsaCJ_234
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            12 hours ago

            Then they will want to reverse this when Russia and China expose Trump and his gang’s dirty laundry.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Verbiage is confusing, but there’s no way 100% are eligible for a buyout.

      Even if you combine VSIP and VERA, to fall under “buyout”, not every fed is going to be eligible, and definitely not every CIA employee.

      But we don’t even have a budget, we’re still on a CR, there’s literally no money allocated for any of this and very few feds are dumb enough to just take Trump’s admin at their word.

      • hotspur@lemmy.ml
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        3 hours ago

        Each agency can choose what components they deem essential for operation and exclude those staff, so yeah, there’s absolutely a large chunk of the CIA that has been barred from taking the offer.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Current scuttlebutt is this has been less than a 1/10th as effective as Clinton’s reduction in force, and isn’t even beating normal retirement numbers.

    If trump had just done buyouts and VERA from the start thru official channels, he might have gotten close to doing as much harm as neoliberals did 30 years ago to the federal workforce

    But no one trusts it after how it started.