Trump to Gut Intelligence Agencies

WaPo’s Warren P. Strobel (“Trump administration plans major downsizing at U.S. spy agencies“) breaks the news:

The Trump administration is planning significant personnel cuts at the Central Intelligence Agency and other major U.S. spy units, downsizing the government’s most sensitive national security agencies, according to people familiar with the plans.

The administration recently informed lawmakers on Capitol Hill that it intends to reduce the CIA’s workforce by about 1,200 personnel over several years and cut thousands more from other parts of the U.S. intelligence community, including at the National Security Agency, a highly secretive service that specializes in cryptology and global electronic espionage, a person familiar with the matter said. The person, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The specifics of the planned cuts have not been previously reported.

The CIA does not publicly disclose the size of its workforce, but it is believed to be about 22,000. It is unclear which parts of the spy agency would be most affected. The downsizing is happening even as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has pledged to put more agency resources on China and on cartels smuggling fentanyl and other synthetic drugs into the United States.

The staff reductions would take place over several years and would be accomplished in part through reduced hiring. No outright firings are envisioned. The goal of a roughly 1,200-person staff reduction includes several hundred individuals who already have opted for early retirement, the person familiar with the matter said.

The downsizing is taking place separately from efforts by the U.S. DOGE Service, led by billionaire Elon Musk, to radically restructure the federal government. Musk met with Ratcliffe in late March for a discussion that included government efficiency measures, but no DOGE teams have been working at the agency’s Langley, Virginia, campus.

“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Administration’s national security priorities,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement. “These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position CIA to deliver on its mission.”

Both Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have pledged to streamline their agencies and, at President Donald Trump’s bidding, have eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs — firing personnel who worked on those issues. Nineteen employees of the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence sued in federal court to stop their dismissal; a federal judge in late March issued a temporary injunction halting the firings.

Since assuming her post, Gabbard has frequently spoken to conservative media outlets and depicted some U.S. intelligence personnel as part of a “deep state” working to undermine Trump, echoing charges the president has made. As a congresswoman from Hawaii, she sometimes expressed skepticism of U.S. intelligence judgments, including a 2017 assessment that Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his own citizens in Syria.

Gabbard said at a White House Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the ODNI is “25 percent smaller and more lean today than when I walked in the door.” She was confirmed to her post on Feb. 12.

[…]

Critics of the planned reductions at the CIA and other agencies said they posed a threat to national security. “These sweeping, reckless cuts of experienced intelligence personnel by the Trump administration will undoubtedly undermine our ability to detect and respond to threats and make America less safe,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (Virginia), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Current and former U.S. officials also warn of a counterintelligence risk, noting that having thousands of potentially disgruntled intelligence personnel out of work presents a ripe recruiting target for adversary nations’ spy services.

Russia and China have recently directed their intelligence services to ramp up attempts to recruit U.S. national security workers, targeting those who have been fired or feel they could be soon, CNN reported in March, citing U.S. intelligence assessments on the issue.

Last month, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a part of the ODNI that coordinates programs to thwart foreign spies, warned that foreign intelligence entities — particularly in China — are targeting current and former U.S. employees online, offering jobs while posing as consulting firms, corporate headhunters and think tanks.

Coming of age during the Reagan administration, I never would have imagined a future in which a Republican President would be openly hostile to America’s intelligence, military, and law enforcement agencies. Then again, I couldn’t have imagined a Republican President cozying up to a Russian regime openly hostile to NATO and which had invaded its neighbors. But here we are.

Cutting DEI programs may well be harmful, but at least it makes for good politics with Trump’s core constituency. But who is it that’s clamoring for deep cuts at the CIA, NSA, and other key intelligence agencies?

While the Trump foreign policy is hard to pin down, the administration apparently still sees China as an adversary. Given that their power and regional aggressiveness is on the upswing, one would think that, if anything, we’d be investing more heavily in intelligence collection and analysis.