Foreign adversaries, including Russia and China, have recently directed their intelligence services to increase recruitment of US federal employees working in national security, focusing on those who have been fired or believe they will be soon, according to four people familiar with recent US intelligence on the subject and a document reviewed by CNN.
The intelligence suggests that foreign adversaries are eager to capitalize on the Trump administration’s efforts to conduct mass layoffs across the federal workforce, as outlined by the Office of Personnel Management earlier this week.
According to two sources, Russia and China are focusing their efforts on recently fired employees with security clearances and probationary employees who are on the verge of termination and may have valuable information about US critical infrastructure and vital government bureaucracy.
At least two countries have already launched recruitment websites and begun aggressively targeting federal employees on LinkedIn, according to two sources.
According to a partially redacted copy reviewed by CNN, a document produced by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service stated that the intelligence community had “high confidence” that foreign adversaries were attempting to recruit federal employees and “capitalize” on the Trump administration’s mass layoff plans.
It also stated that foreign intelligence officers were instructed to search for potential sources on LinkedIn, TikTok, RedNote, and Reddit.
According to the NCIS document, at least one foreign intelligence officer directed an asset to create a company profile on LinkedIn and post a job advertisement, as well as actively pursue federal employees who indicate they are “open to work.”
The adversaries believe the employees “are at their most vulnerable right now,” according to another source. “Out of a job, bitter about being fired, etc.”
“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that these cast aside federal workers with a wealth of institutional knowledge represent staggeringly attractive targets to the intelligence services of our competitors and adversaries,” a third source familiar with the recent US assessments told CNN.
CNN has contacted the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as well as the Chinese and Russian embassies in Washington, for comment.
The intelligence appears to confirm what was previously a hypothetical fear among current and US officials: that mass firings could provide a lucrative recruitment opportunity for foreign intelligence services looking to exploit financially vulnerable or resentful former employees.
The Justice Department has charged several former military and intelligence officials with providing US intelligence to China in recent years.
Officials have been discussing the risk
In recent weeks, career officials at the CIA have quietly discussed that risk and how to mitigate it, according to current and former intelligence officials.
Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, suggested earlier this week that those discussions were a “threat” made by disloyal government employees, rather than a clinical warning of the potential risks posed by President Donald Trump’s aggressive cost-cutting strategy, and that those involved should face consequences.
“I am curious about how they think this is a good tactic to keep their job,” Gabbard told Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Tuesday. “They’re essentially exposing themselves by issuing this indirect threat via CNN, which they’ve used repeatedly to reveal their hand, that their loyalty is not to America. It is not about the American people or the Constitution. It is for themselves.
“And these are exactly the kind of people that we need to root out, get rid of so that the patriots who do work in this area, who are committed to our core mission can actually focus on that,” she told the audience.
Multiple current officials from national security agencies who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity expressed dissatisfaction with the administration’s response to what they see as legitimate warnings — not partisan swiping.
“Employees who believe they have been mistreated by their employer have historically been much more likely to disclose sensitive information,” said Holden Triplett, who was director of counterintelligence at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration and is a former FBI attaché at the US embassies in Moscow and Beijing. “We may be creating, albeit somewhat unintentionally, the perfect recruitment environment.”
‘This isn’t reality TV’
“This isn’t reality TV,” added another former intelligence officer. “There are consequences.”
The CIA and Defense Department are considering significant staff reductions. In a memo issued last week, the Pentagon stated that over 5,000 probationary employees, most of whom have been on the job for a year or less, could be fired in the near future. And the CIA has already fired over 20 officers for their work on diversity issues, with many of them suing in court.
According to a former intelligence official, the CIA actively seeks to recruit dissatisfied government employees in adversarial countries “all the time,” employing similar tactics.
The agency has released a series of public recruitment videos aimed at persuading disgruntled Russian government employees to spy for the United States, including videos outlining how to securely contact the agency.
“Is there domestic political unrest in your country?” Sign up with us to help us help your country!'” the former official paraphrased the US efforts, adding that they enrage foreign governments.
The CIA may have already inadvertently exposed some American secrets to foreign spies and hackers. In an effort to comply with the executive order to reduce the federal workforce, the CIA sent an extraordinarily unusual email to the White House earlier this month, listing all new hires who had been with the agency for two years or less — a list that included CIA officers preparing to operate under cover — via an unclassified email server.
Some of those officers, who had access to classified information about the agency’s operations and tradecraft, may now be let go as part of the layoffs.
