Tag Archives: CIA

The New York Times reports: The C.I.A. director John Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that intelligence sharing with Ukraine had been paused alongside military aid to pressure its government to cooperate with the Trump administration’s plans to end the country’s war with Russia. Speaking on Fox Business, Mr. Ratcliffe applauded the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement on Tuesday praising President Trump …

Bloomberg News reports: A group of 200 former national security officials urged congressional leaders to investigate the motive behind the Central Intelligence Agency’s buyout offers to staff, warning they were designed to “shape the workforce in a matter that prioritizes political loyalty.” In a letter sent Friday to the chair and ranking members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, …

NBC News reports: The CIA has offered so-called buyouts to its workforce, a CIA spokesperson said, the latest move by the Trump administration to overhaul and scale back the federal government. The offer of eight months of pay and benefits is similar to deferred resignation offers proposed to employees at other federal agencies. But at the CIA, some employees — …

The Washington Post reports: The CIA said Saturday that it now favors a Chinese laboratory leak as the mostly likely origin of the coronavirus pandemic, the latest development in the still-simmering debate over the virus and the nation’s response. Several other intelligence agencies continue to favor the natural-origin theory, and there is no evidence SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the pandemic, …

USA Today reports: The Senate on Thursday easily confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, making him the second key player to join the new Republican administration’s national security and foreign policy team. Ratcliffe, who formerly served as director of national Intelligence in Trump’s first term, won on a 74-25 vote. The Senate confirmed …

The Washington Post reports: President-elect Donald Trump has told close aides he is no longer considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter-in-law to serve as deputy director at the CIA, after a campaign by Republican lawmakers who feared she would seek to impose major changes at America’s top spy agency, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump’s decision to pass …

Axios reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes the CIA had a role in assassinating his uncle, President John F. Kennedy — part of RFK Jr.’s motivation for pushing his daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, for deputy CIA director, Axios has learned. President-elect Trump feels indebted to RFK Jr., his pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, for his help in …

Axios reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign manager and daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy is making a push to serve as deputy director at the CIA next year — and RFK Jr. is making calls on her behalf, Axios has learned. The deputy position is one of the highest-profile intelligence jobs that remains open. Politico reported last month that Kash Patel, …

The New York Times reports: A C.I.A. official has been charged with disclosing classified documents that appeared to show Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran for a missile attack earlier this year, according to court documents and people familiar with the matter. The official, Asif W. Rahman, was indicted last week in federal court in Virginia with two counts of …

CNN reports: Donald Trump has chosen John Ratcliffe to serve as his CIA director, the president-elect announced in a statement Tuesday. Ratcliffe had been high on the list of potential attorney general candidates, sources told CNN. He is currently a co-chair at the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-linked think tank. Ratcliffe stayed in …

Reuters reports: Two years into office, President Donald Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the highly classified operation. Three former officials told Reuters that the CIA created a small team of operatives …

Axios reports: A former CIA software engineer who was convicted of carrying out the largest data breach in the agency’s history was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Thursday, the Department of Justice announced. Joshua Adam Schulte’s “transmission of that stolen information to WikiLeaks is one of the largest unauthorized disclosures of classified information in the history of the …

The New York Times reports: As President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has pursued enemies abroad, his intelligence operatives now appear prepared to cross a line that they previously avoided: trying to kill a valuable informant for the U.S. government on American soil. The clandestine operation, seeking to eliminate a C.I.A. informant in Miami who had been a high-ranking Russian …

CNN reports: The Biden administration faces a Wednesday deadline to publicly release a tranche of secret documents that some historians — and conspiracy theorists — hope might shed light on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The release is expected to prolong the bitter debate between the federal government and JFK researchers, who have argued that the CIA, …

The Associated Press reports: Thousands of intelligence officers could soon face dismissal for failing to comply with the U.S. government’s vaccine mandate, leading some Republican lawmakers to raise concerns about removing employees from agencies critical to national security.  Several intelligence agencies had at least 20% of their workforce unvaccinated as of late October, said U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah …

NBC News reports: President-elect Joe Biden announced Monday that he has nominated former career diplomat William Burns to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. “The American people will sleep soundly with him as our next CIA Director,” Biden said in a statement. Burns is the last major nomination for Biden, who takes office in nine days. Burns most recently served as …

ABC News reports: CIA Director Gina Haspel led a slate of intelligence officials to the U.S. Capitol Thursday to brief a select group of lawmakers on reports Russia offered bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan. Members of the so-called “Gang of Eight” were expected to attend Thursday’s briefing. The exclusive group is comprised of the legislative …

The Washington Post reports: The CIA has privately advised its workforce that taking an anti-malarial drug touted by President Trump and some of his supporters as a promising treatment for the novel coronavirus has potentially dangerous side effects, including sudden death. The warning, featured on a website for CIA employees with questions related to the spread of covid-19, came in …

NBC News reports: Weeks before the whistleblower’s complaint became public, the CIA’s top lawyer made what she considered to be a criminal referral to the Justice Department about the whistleblower’s allegations that President Donald Trump abused his office in pressuring the Ukrainian president, U.S. officials familiar with the matter tell NBC News. The move by the CIA’s general counsel, Trump …

The New York Times reports: The whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity. The man has since returned to the C.I.A., …