CIA Agents’ Names Risk Exposure After Trump Demands List In Unclassified Email

President Donald Trump’s demand that a list of all new hires at the Central Intelligence Agency be sent to the White House could compromise the identity of agents and jeopardize America’s overseas missions.

Newsweek has contacted the CIA via online contact form outside of business hours and will update this article if a response is received.

Why It Matters

Both lawmakers and former intelligence officials have warned that, should this list of names fall into the hands of foreign intelligence services, it could be exploited, endanger agents’ cover, and jeopardize overseas espionage missions.

What To Know

The email, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by the CIA, contained the names of all employees hired within the past two years, and was sent to the Office of Personnel Management to comply with Trump’s recent executive orders aimed at trimming down the federal workforce.

According to the New York Times, the list contained the first names and the initials of the surnames of the CIA’s new hires who are still on probation and thus easy to dismiss. It included a considerable number of intelligence analysts “who were hired specifically to focus on China, and whose identities are usually closely guarded because Chinese hackers are constantly seeking to identify them.”

Officials told the outlet that omitting of the employees’ full last names would ensure that their identity remained secret, therefore making these safe to send on an unclassified system. However, former officials said the partial names could be cross-referenced with existing, publicly available data to deduce their full identities. Another unnamed source told CNN that some of the employees had “uncommon” first names, making their identities easier to discover.

What People Are Saying

A CIA spokesperson told CNN: “We are complying with the Executive Orders, and are providing requested information through the appropriate channels.”

Senator and Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner (D-VA) reacted to the NYT report on Wednesday, writing on X: “Exposing the identities of officials who do extremely sensitive work would put a direct target on their backs for China. A disastrous national security development.”

Representative and ranking member of House Intelligence Committee Jim Hines (D-CT) told MSNBC on Wednesday: “It’s so unnecessary. It is so easy to convey these things through classified channels.”

An unnamed former senior intelligence official told NBC: “Any foreign intelligence service worth its weight could apply research and analytic tools to marry up these names and initials with other public records to identify and target many of them.”

Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday: “Donald Trump was always talking about Hillary [Clinton’s] emails. What about this email, that potentially exposes the identity of people who are working at the CIA, wanting to work at the CIA…According to public reports, the administration’s response was, ‘oh don’t worry, that unclassified email only contained their first name and the first initial of their last name.’ Well I’m sure that China, with all of its big-data analytics, will have no trouble with that at all.”

What Happens Next?

As well as compiling a list of probationary hires—those who would likely be easier to dismiss from the Agency—the CIA is offering “deferred resignation” buyouts to employees who voluntarily resign. The incentive packages are similar to those offered to other employees across the federal government, and include a promise of eight months salary for those who decide to vacate their positions by Thursday.

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