CIA offers buyouts to entire workforce to align with Trump priorities

5/2/2025 11:29

The Central Intelligence Agency offered buyouts to its entire workforce Tuesday, citing an aim to bring the agency in line with U.S. President Donald Trump's priorities, the Wall Street Journal reported.



The U.S. spy agency is also freezing the hiring of job applicants already given a conditional offer, the WSJ reported, quoting an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe.



The aide, not named in the report, said some of those frozen offers are likely to be rescinded if the applicants do not have the right background for the agency's new goals, which include targeting drug cartels, Trump's trade war and undermining China.



A CIA spokeswoman told the Journal that the move was part of an effort to "infuse the agency with renewed energy."



The report of buyout offers is in line with a massive makeover of the U.S. government embarked on by the Trump administration, which has fired and sidelined hundreds of civil servants in first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.