'A ripe set of targets': Intel experts sound alarm that fired spies could turn on U.S.

Add to concerns about the slash-and-burn efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency to purge as many federal workers as possible before the courts can intervene, is the risk that fired employees who have had access to the nation's secrets will be ripe for recruitment. Pointing out that Donald Trump's approval of letting Elon Musk and DOGE staffers have a free hand in firing left and right has had the end effect of putting "hundreds of intelligence and national security officials who had access to reams of classified information" on the street. In interviews with ex-U.S. intelligence officials, lawyers specializing in national security matters and counterintelligence experts, Mackinnon wrote there is a foreboding sense of alarm over the newly created national security crisis during Trump's second term. Kevin Carroll, a former CIA case officer, agreed and added that how Musk's DOGE employees have conducted themselves has compounded the threat to the U.S. “You’re absolutely creating a counterintelligence risk,” he said. “Not by letting people go, but the manner in which you’re letting people go.” Sen. Mark Warner who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee has also sounded the alarm in a statement explaining, "The chaotic and haphazard way the administration and DOGE are going about firing seasoned intelligence and law enforcement officers across the government – including, for example, officers that specifically work on counter-espionage – severely increases the counterintelligence risk to America.” The report adds, "The concern extends beyond those working directly in intelligence.