CIA dismisses 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.
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. In a court filing, the government suggested that further dismissals may be imminent, and a current official familiar with the matter confirmed that agency officials are in the process of working on recommendations for further cuts. A final number has not yet been decided, that person said. Some of the fired officers are now challenging their dismissal in court on the grounds that it violated federal workforce laws, and a federal judge in Virginia is expected to hold a hearing to weigh a temporary restraining order against the move on Monday. Kevin Carroll, a lawyer and former CIA officer, said he represents 21 officers who have been fired. “None of these officers’ activities was or is illegal, and at no time have the agencies employing Plaintiffs contended that they individually engaged in any misconduct, nor are they accused of poor performance,” those officers claim in a complaint against Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. “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 not somehow ‘DEIA officers,’” the filing read. “Plaintiffs are career intelligence officers of different career services who Defendants believe, in some cases inaccurately, now serve in temporary positions related to DEIA.”
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