The Central Intelligence Agency offered its entire workforce a buyout this week, as President Donald Trump seeks to overhaul the federal government in his vision.
In exchange for resigning or taking early retirement, CIA officers can obtain roughly eight months of pay and benefits, those familiar with the report said – an offer similar to the one the Office of Personnel Management sent to federal employees last week.
It is unclear how many CIA employees have accepted the buyout. The exact number of CIA employees is not public information.
Many federal employees with national security roles were initially believed to be exempt from the original buyout offer but sources told the Wall Street Journal that newly-confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe personally decided he wanted the agency to be included.
In a statement to The Independent, a spokesperson for the CIA said Ratcliffe is moving quickly to “ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the administration’s national security priorities” and “infuse the agency with renewed energy.”
A source familiar with the situation said the buyout may not apply to all CIA employees given the agency is comprised of individuals with specific areas of expertise. However, the offer went out department wide.
It appears to be the first national security agency to offer its employees a buyout similar to the one other federal employees received.
Federal employees have been inundated with sweeping changes across all departments as Trump and his allies – notably billionaire Elon Musk who heads the Department of Government Efficiency – seek to reshape the government to ensure only those who will carry out Trump’s agenda remain.
Initial reporting indicates there is little enthusiasm for deferred resignation offers across the federal workforce as some remain skeptical about how honest the promise is or if it’s legally sound. Approximately 1 percent of federal employees - about 20,000 workers - have accepted the buyout offer, according to reports.
Buyout offers specific to the CIA were highly scrutinized specifically.
Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, insinuated that the CIA buyouts are a “win” for U.S. foreign adversaries such as Russia and China.
Garrett Graff, a journalist and historian, criticized the buyouts on CNN Tuesday saying the goal is to cause “chaos” and “wreckage.”
“Its certainly not a cost-cutting measure to throw away decades of experiences and millions in dollars in training that we have invested in these workforces,” Graff said.
“Any one of these federal agencies is like any other workplace, there is very small number of people on whom sort of the whole operation lies. The people who know the institutional history, the people who understand how the system and operations work and when those people leave the whole thing seizes up,” Graff added.
