Russia and China apparently want to recruit US agents

Fired employees as a goal?

Russia and China apparently want to recruit US agents

Russia and China are trying to recruit dissatisfied US federal officials. What danger does this tactic do for national security?

Russia and China apparently try to recruit dissatisfied US federal officials as informants. A report by CNN relies on insider information from secret services. They indicate that foreign intelligence services are targeted by relevant or dismissal employees from security-relevant US authorities. In particular, the focus is on people with access to sensitive information about critical infrastructure and administrative processes of the US government.

According to CNN, the intelligence stanalyzes indicate that Moscow and Beijing concentrate in particular on former employees with security releases and on civil servants during the trial period. They are said to have already set up recruitment platforms in order to specifically address former government employees on LinkedIn and other social networks. A report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), which CNN was part of, comes to the conclusion that these efforts with “high certainty” aim to use the Trump government’s plans for mass layoffs.

According to the information, foreign intelligence services use platforms such as LinkedIn, Tiktok, Rednote and Reddit to address potential sources. In at least one case, an agent is said to have been instructed to create a fake company profile and to specifically contact federal officials who have stated in their profiles to be open to new job offers. An insider told CNN that from the perspective of the secret services, the employees concerned were “particularly vulnerable” because the layoffs were financially and emotionally in a difficult situation.

Within the US government, there are controversial reactions to these findings. While intelligence officers classify the threat as serious, the director of the national intelligence services, Tulsi Gabbard, accused the officials of revealing “their own disloyalty” by passing on such information.

In an interview with FOX News, she criticized that government employees exposed themselves with such statements and that it was necessary to “sort out these people so that loyal employees can concentrate on their actual tasks.” Other high -ranking security officers, who spoke anonymously with CNN, considered Gabard’s reaction to be problematic and emphasized that the danger was real due to foreign espionage.

In addition to the targeted worn -out, an internal measure of the CIA could have unintentionally increased the risk of secret. In order to implement the requirements for reducing the federal authorities, the CIA recently sent an unencrypted email to the White House, according to CNN. In this, all new settings of the past two years were listed – including agents that prepared for missions under false identity. Some of these employees could now be released in the course of ongoing dismissals, which, according to former secret service, could be a weak point for national security.

A former CIA official made his concern about the current situation towards CNN: “This is a gift for enemy secret services. We have created a situation in which highly qualified, frustrated employees with secret information suddenly stand without a job.”

Holden Triplett, a former director of counter -spy on the National Security Council, also warned: “We could unintentionally create the perfect recruitment environment.” Another former secret service employee criticized the political background of the layoffs: “This is not a reality TV. This has real consequences.”