Russian and Chinese intelligence services are intensifying efforts to recruit former U.S. federal employees dismissed by President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), CNN reports.
Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Foreign Ministry and China’s Embassy in Washington for comment by email.
Why It Matters
Led by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, DOGE has been working to cut the federal workforce by at least 10 percent since Trump took office on January 20. The advisory body’s aggressive downsizing has already impacted tens of thousands of employees, sparking concerns that former government workers who are resentful or vulnerable after the mass layoffs could be exploited by foreign adversaries.
What We Know
The development was reported by CNN on March 1, citing a partially redacted Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) document and four sources familiar with recent U.S. intelligence on the matter.
Foreign rivals, including Russia and China, are scouring social media platforms LinkedIn, TikTok, RedNote and Reddit, and are aggressively targeting fired federal employees. The NCIS document said it is highly likely that Washington’s competitors are attempting to try “capitalize” on DOGE’s attempts to dismantle the federal workforce.
They are targeting in particular recently dismissed workers with security clearances and probationary staff facing potential termination who may possess valuable insights into U.S. critical infrastructure and key government operations, two of the sources said.
The fired workers are believed to be “at their most vulnerable right now” and are “bitter about being fired,” another source said.
“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that these cast aside federal workers with a wealth of institutional knowledge represent staggeringly attractive targets to the intelligence services of our competitors and adversaries,” a third source said.
In recent years, the U.S. Department of Justice has charged a number of former military and intelligence officials for providing classified information to China and Russia, including: former CIA officers Alexander Yuk Ching Ma and Jerry Chun Shing Lee; former U.S. Army Green Beret Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins; and former U.S. Intelligence Agency officer Ron Rockwell Hansen.
What People Are Saying
Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told CNN: “China has always been committed to developing relations with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. We oppose groundless speculation on China without factual basis.”
What Happens Next
DOGE’s sweeping layoffs are continuing under billionaire Musk’s leadership. The advisory body on Saturday sent a second email to federal workers demanding that they list, in five bullet points, what they had achieved over the past week. They have until Monday at 11:59 p.m. ET to respond.
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