How Trump’s government-cutting moves risk exposing the CIA’s secrets

Washington CNN — The CIA is conducting a formal review to assess any potential damage from an unclassified email sent to the White House in early February that identified for possible layoffs some officers by first name and last initial and could’ve exposed the roles of people working undercover, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. “They now assume the predecessors were the same work backwards and find out their collective footprint.” “The position is now burned.” Fired employees create security risks Meanwhile, as the CIA weighs staff cuts, current and former intelligence officials say that mass firings could offer a rich recruitment opportunity for foreign intelligence services — like China or Russia — who may seek to exploit financially vulnerable or resentful former employees. “You’re just rolling the dice that these folks are gonna honor their secrecy agreement and not volunteer to a hostile intelligence service.” As a result, some officials are considering how to treat those employees who are inevitably fired or elect to take a buyout — including whether to allow them to access agency buildings at all, another person familiar with the discussions said. But the risk is “real.” Exposing covert payments Career officials have also moved to mitigate what they see as potential counterintelligence risks stemming from the work done by Musk’s DOGE. A recent sworn declaration filed in court by the career Treasury official who oversees the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s information and security operations provided a window into the potential risks, which included “access to sensitive data elements, insider threat risk, and other risks that are inherent to any user access to sensitive IT systems.” Joseph Gioeli, the Fiscal Service’s Deputy Commissioner for Transformation and Modernization, also detailed expansive security infrastructure urgently built around Marko Elez, a DOGE engineer granted “read-only” access to the systems.