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.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.
Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.
As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.
The murder trial of Brian Walshe, who is accused of killing and dismembering his wife in 2023 continues. Follow for live updates.
The FBI arrested a person Thursday who investigators believe planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot.
Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office are expected to appear in federal court in Albany on Thursday to try to disqualify a US attorney from investigating the state’s civil case against President Donald Trump.
A new poll shows more than 70% of Republicans with Obamacare coverage don’t want their enhanced premium subsidies to expire.
A safety volunteer accused of fatally shooting a man taking part in a “No Kings” protest last June in Salt Lake City while firing at another man he believed to be a potential mass shooter has been charged with manslaughter, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
The specter of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown looms over the Somali diaspora in the Twin Cities – home to the nation’s largest Somali population.
Honduras’ former President Juan Orlando Hernández thanked US President Donald Trump for pardoning his US drug trafficking conviction amid criticism from lawmakers that the pardon undermines the White House’s efforts to stop drug trafficking.