Donald Trump accused of blinding US to Russia threat with campaign against CIA

Donald Trump’s campaign of revenge against CIA officials is “blinding” the US to the threat posed by Russia, former intelligence officers have warned.

The president’s administration has publicly revoked the security clearances of dozens of officials who contributed to the 2017 assessment that Russia interfered in the presidential election on Mr Trump’s behalf.

The decision to publish a list of 37 current and former intelligence professionals who had allegedly “betrayed their oath” to the constitution by “weaponising intelligence” for partisan goals has left agents fearful and looking over their shoulders.

There is widespread shock that Tulsi Gabbard, Mr Trump’s director of intelligence, named an undercover CIA officer who had briefed the president ahead of his meeting with Vladimir Putin.

The purge of intelligence officials means those who remain are more likely to water down reports on Russia, request transfers to less politically sensitive subjects, or avoid risky operations inside Moscow, four former intelligence officers told The Telegraph.

The warning comes ahead of Putin’s launch of war games with Belarus, which will see 40,000 Russian troops take part in Zapad 2025. The last time Russia held a major military exercise in Belarus in 2021, it was a prelude to war.

The “vindictive” public attacks on CIA officers risk undoing the work to scale up the agency’s “Russia House” that helped it accurately predict Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Inside the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, an atmosphere of distrust and caution has taken root, The Telegraph was told.

Hundreds of officers have resigned or taken early retirement following Doge’s offer to buy out the contracts of federal workers.

Around one-third of the 300-strong workforce of the state department’s intelligence agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), have also left the government.

Larry Pfeiffer, a career intelligence officer who served as the director of the White House situation room under Barack Obama, warned the US was losing the “agency’s ability to provide the best and brightest on the targets that really matter”. 

Officers seeking to preserve their careers would be less willing to work on topics that could produce intelligence in conflict with the administration’s political views.

“It would not surprise me to learn that somebody has decided to leave working [on Russia] and they’re now working on economic targets in the Southern Cone of South America,” he said.

One former CIA officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that undercover agents would also be less likely to put their lives on the line for the sake of intelligence that could be dismissed by the White House.

“If you’re in Moscow, why am I going to risk my health, the well-being of my family [to collect information] that is just going to be thrown in the trash?”

In her role as director of national intelligence, Ms Gabbard named the 37 intelligence professionals in a post published on X on Aug 19. One of the individuals was a Russia expert then serving undercover.

The ex-CIA officers who spoke to The Telegraph said that the careless disclosure of the agent’s identity could imperil the “architecture” of their cover story, endangering other people who might rely on the same chain of deception. And it could discourage agents in the field.

“If I truly am a clandestine officer, and I’ve been that way for my career, I might say to myself, ‘well, if they’re so cavalier with an officer recently placed under cover, what’s going to happen to me?’” the ex-CIA officer said.

The list of 37 names was reportedly based in part on a similar version provided by Laura Loomer, a far-Right influencer close to the president who has claimed 9/11 was an inside job.

Many of those included have a connection to the 2017 intelligence community assessment (ICA), which concluded that Moscow had deployed cyber operations, propaganda and influence campaigns to boost Mr Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton in the 2016 vote. That assessment has been backed up by several later reports, although no evidence has been found that Mr Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia, a subject of liberal hysteria.

The purge of officials has caught up many who had no real input on the conclusions of the report, The Telegraph was told.

“In some cases they were, say, the executive assistant to a senior official,” said a second former intelligence officer. “You may be conveying the principal’s desires or wishes, but you yourself are just the medium or the messenger.”

Once an intelligence officer’s clearance is revoked, they are not only effectively fired but barred from the consultancy work many take up on retirement.

In recent months, Mr Trump has dismissed intelligence officers over more current assessments with which his administration disagrees.

Lt Gen Jeffrey Kruse, the head of the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), was sacked after a leaked report said the strikes on Iran had only set back its nuclear programme by months.

“We’re blinding ourselves,” said Steven Cash, a former CIA officer who runs Steady State, an organisation of former national security officials who oppose the Trump administration on policy grounds.

“You can’t talk to colleagues, because nobody knows who’s co-operating with the regime, nobody knows who’s been put into the job because they were the next one to slot up to be your branch chief,” Mr Cash said. Whistleblowers would be discouraged, he added, as the heads of the relevant channels had all been recently replaced.

In March, dozens of “probationary” CIA officers still in their first two years of service were suddenly fired. Many of those officers have been prevented from securing future employment in the defence sector, The Telegraph was told, as the CIA is not answering requests to check their security clearances.

“I had one of these people who was crying in my presence in just the last week,” said a former senior intelligence officer.

The sum effect is likely to unwind the ferocious effort that went into penetrating the Kremlin’s inner circle, something that the CIA had not achieved in several decades after the end of the Cold War.

After the revelation of Putin’s meddling in 2017, US senators approved budget increases that allowed the CIA to drastically step up its recruitment of Russian sources, according to The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century, a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Tim Weiner.

“Russia House” hired new officers who had proven able to convince members of al-Qaeda and other terror groups to become spies, rather than any facility with the Russian language or experience in the country.

It also began to share its intelligence much more widely with foreign partners, resulting in a blossoming of relations that meant the CIA knew Putin was bulking up military reserves and making contingency plans well ahead of February 2022.

Those relations were now certain to be suffering, The Telegraph was told, while US intelligence agencies would be compartmentalising valuable information rather than risk sharing it and exposing sources to risk.

“Say you had a human source, right? And it gave you some brilliant information out of Moscow,” the ex-CIA officer said. “Would you be sharing that, at the moment, with Gabbard?”

Meanwhile, there are concerns within the CIA that officers who worked on investigations into the origins of Covid-19 or Havana Syndrome could be targeted next.

Agency chiefs are actively seeking to protect valued officers who worked on the Covid-19 reports, not giving them promotions or high-profile assignments in order to shield them from the attention of the White House.

“It’s a really complex topic,” the first ex-CIA officer said. “We’ve changed our assessment [towards the idea that the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory]. There’s probably plenty to be updated because it’s just an ongoing evolution of the assessment process. In hindsight, you can say, ‘Well, they didn’t do everything perfectly. Let’s fire them’.”

For those intelligence officers on Ms Gabbard’s list, there are personal impacts, too.

“Many [on the list] have had very nasty emails, and phone messages. Some have had police Swat teams called on their house,” said Mr Pfeiffer, 64, who retired in January and had his clearance revoked in March.

“I probably worry less about official Washington coming after me… than some crazy person who reads the stuff and says ‘Well, I’m going to take matters into my own hands,’” said Mr Pfeiffer, who served in the CIA, NSA and ODNI across a distinguished career.

Speaking to The Telegraph from his back garden, Mr Cash wondered if his own communications were entirely secure, given his vocal opposition to Mr Trump. “How many lines are they crossing?” he asked. “Do they know that you and I exchanged emails?”

As we spoke, a helicopter flew overhead. Perhaps it was dangling a microphone to pick up the conversation, the 62-year-old joked.

Then he became serious. “I now live in a world that’s much more like Budapest or Moscow,” he said, referring to the “Moscow Rules” issued by the CIA to keep its undercover operatives safe.

“We’re not quite there yet,” Mr Cash added, rocking back in his chair. “But it’s starting to feel like that.”

David Wilson