Foreign adversaries, including Russia and China, recently gave instructions to their information services to intensify the recruitment of US federal employees who work in the area of national security, aiming at those who have been faced or who may soon be, according to four people familiar with recent US information on the issue and a document analyzed by CNN.
Secret services indicate that foreign opponents are eager to explore Trump management’s efforts to make mass discharge in the federal workforce – a plan presented by the personnel management office earlier this week.
Russia and China are focusing on their efforts on recently failed employees with security permits and interns at risk of being dismissed, which may have valuable information on US critical infrastructure and the government’s vital bureaucracy have confirmed two of the sources. At least two countries have already created recruitment sites and began to aggressively aim at federal employees on LinkedIn.
A document produced by the Navy Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) states that the Information Services community evaluated with “high confidence” that foreign opponents were trying to recruit federal employees and “capitalize” the Trump administration’s plans for mass layoffs, according to a partially written copy analyzed by CNN.
He added that foreign secret services were being oriented to look for potential sources on LinkedIn, Tiktok, RedNote and Reddit.
At least one foreign secret agent has instructed an asset to create a company profile on LinkedIn and publish a job ad, and to actively seek federal employees to be “open to work,” says the NCIS document.
Adversaries think employees “are at their most vulnerable point right now,” said another sources. “Unemployed, embittered by being failed, etc.”
“It doesn’t take much imagination to see that these federal employees, who have been put aside and who have a richness of institutional knowledge, represent extremely attractive targets for the information services of our competitors and opponents,” CNN told CNN familiar with recent US reviews.
The information seems to confirm what was once a hypothetical fear for current employees and Americans: that mass discharges could be an excellent opportunity for recruitment for foreign information services, which could try to explore former financially vulnerable or resentful employees. In recent years, the Justice Department has accused several old military and secret services employees of providing US information to China.
“China has always endeavored to develop relations with the United States based on mutual respect and non-interference in their internal affairs,” said Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu. “We oppose unfounded speculation on China without a factual basis.”
CNN contacted the director of national secret services director, as well as the Russian embassy in Washington DC, for comments.
Employees have been discussing the risk
CIA career employees have been discreetly discussing this risk and the way it mitigates it in recent weeks, they previously said current CNN and former secret services employees. The director of national secret services, Tulsi Gabbard, suggested earlier this week that these discussions represented a “threat” made by unfair government officials – rather than a clinical warning of the potential risks placed by President Donald Trump’s aggressive cost cutting strategy – and that involved should be penalized.
“I’m curious to know how they think this is a good tactic to keep their job,” Gabbard told Fox News Jesse Watters. “They are essentially exposing themselves when making this indirect threat when using the propaganda arm through CNN that they repeatedly used to reveal their hand, that their loyalty is by no means to America. It is not towards the American people or the Constitution. It is for themselves. “
“And this is exactly the kind of people we need to eliminate, so that the patriots who work in this area, who are committed to our main mission, can really focus on that,” he said.
Several current national security agencies that spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity expressed frustration with the administration’s response to what they see as very real warnings – not as a party fraud.
“Employees who feel that they have been mistreated by an employer are historically much more likely to disseminate sensitive information,” says Holden Triplett, who was director of counter -espionage at the National Security Council at the first Trump administration and is an old FBI attaché at the US embassies in Moscow and Beijing. “We may be creating, though unintentionally, the perfect recruitment environment.”
This is not a reality show
“This is not a reality show,” said another former secret service official. “There are consequences.”
The CIA and the Defense Department are pondering significant staff cuts. The Pentagon said in a memo last week that more than five thousand employees to the experience, which in most cases have been in his post a year or less, could be dismissed in the short term. And the CIA has said goodbye more than 20 employees for their work on diversity issues, many of which are now contesting their dismissal in court.
The CIA also aggressively seeks to recruit disgruntled civil servants in “all the time,” a former secret service official noted – using similar tactics. The agency has launched a series of public recruitment videos designed to persuade Russian civil servants unhappy to spy to the United States, which described in detail the ways to contact the agency securely.
“’Internal political turmoil in your country? Subscribe to us to help us help your country! ”He paraphrased the former employee, adding that these efforts deeply aggravate foreign governments.
The CIA may have already inadvertently placed some American secrets within reach of foreign spies and pirates. In an effort to comply with the executive order of reducing the federal workforce, CIA sent an extraordinary email at the beginning of this month with a list of all new hires that had been at the agency two years or less – a list that included CIA officers who were preparing to operate under disguise – through an unmalling email server.
Some of these employees, who have had access to confidential information on the agency’s operations and work, may now be dismissed under the dismissal process.
CNN Sean Lyngaas contributed to the report
