CIA dismisses dozens of intelligence officers for working on diversity issues

CNN — The CIA late last week moved to fire more than a dozen officers for working on diversity issues, in what amounts to a deeply unusual round of mass firings at the agency, according to court filings and current and former officials familiar with the effort. “Plaintiffs are being fired because of their assumed beliefs about a domestic political issue, and losing their property interest in their employment without due process of law.” According to the filing, the officers were only on temporary assignments working on diversity issues — the agency routinely assigns officers to different roles as part of their career development — and in some cases, they were not working on diversity issues at all. “Plaintiffs are career intelligence officers of different career services who Defendants believe, in some cases inaccurately, now serve in temporary positions related to DEIA.” The CIA declined to comment. On January 22, according to court filings and Carroll, the agency put some 51 officers’ roles under review and put them on administrative leave “apparently only because of their temporary assignments to personnel functions involving DEIA.” Last Friday, some of those officers received phone calls from human resources officers directing them to report to CIA or ODNI facilities and bring their access badges with them — a precursor to dismissal.