CIA offering buyouts to its entire workforce: report

The Central Intelligence Agency, in what officials reportedly claimed was an effort to bring the agency in line with Trump’s agenda, offered buyouts to its entire staff on Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the agency is the first to tell its employees they can quit and get eight months of pay and benefits.

Last month, the Trump administration offered about 2 million federal employees buyouts to be paid through September, though the window to accept the offer closes on Thursday.

While the Trump administration made offers to some 2 million federal workers, some categories were exempt from taking advantage of the buyout, including federal workers with national security roles.

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CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly told the White House to extend the same offer to employees within the CIA, hoping it could pave the way for “a more aggressive” agency, an aide told the Wall Street Journal.

Fox News learned that even though the CIA was exempt, Ratcliffe personally decided he wanted the agency to participate.

On Thursday, he emailed the Office of Personnel Management and asked for a process that would enable the CIA to email its workforce and offer the same opportunity, while also retaining flexibility to work through the timing of employee departures in critical areas.

Ratcliffe also chose to offer the option of early retirement to long-tenured officers, while also halting on bringing on any officer offered a job late during the Biden administration to ensure their position aligns with the Trump administration’s priorities.

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“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Administration’s national security priorities,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position the CIA to deliver on its mission.”

The Office of Personnel Management, which operates as the federal government’s human resources department, notified roughly 2 million federal employees on Jan. 28 that they would be required to work out of their respective offices five days a week, or they could leave their roles through the equivalent of a buyout offer. The deadline to accept the offer is Feb. 6.

Those who choose to take the offer will retain all pay and benefits and be exempt from in-person work until Sep. 30.

During Trump’s first week in office, he issued several directives to the federal workforce, including a requirement that remote employees must return to in-person work.