BREAKING: Russia, China attempt to enlist federal workers laid off by Trump admin: report

Adversarial governments to the United States, including in Russia and China, are attempting to hire former federal employees who have been fired from the Trump administration after thousands of employees have been let go since President Donald Trump took office, according to CNN.

The outlet reported that four sources familiar with US intelligence being gathered on the issue said that Russia and China have been making a concerted effort to recruit those who feel they have been targeted by the administration because of getting fired or those that fear they will be fired.

“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,” one source told the outlet.

Another source told reporters at CNN that China and Russia think that the staffers “are at their most vulnerable right now,” that they are “out of a job [and] bitter about being fired.” 

A previous report from CNN stated, "On the CIA’s 7th floor — home to top leadership — some officers are also quietly discussing how mass firings and the buyouts already offered to staff risk creating a group of disgruntled former employees who might be motivated to take what they know to a foreign intelligence service." 

X account End Wokeness said at the time of the report that "disgruntled CIA agents on floor #7 (higher ranking) are now, via CNN, threatening to LITERALLY commit treason," and then cited the line from the CNN report. 

Tulsi Gabbard responded to the CNN article as well, making similar statements, "I am curious about how they think this is a good tactic to keep their job. They are exposing themselves, essentially, by making this indirect threat, using their propaganda arm through CNN that they’ve used over and over and over again to reveal their hand, that their loyalty is not at all to America, it is not to the American people or the Constitution, it is to themselves."

But officials that spoke to CNN from the intelligence community have insisted that the report was not a threat but a warning about the efforts from the adversarial nations. "Employees that feel they have been mistreated by an employer have historically been much more likely to disclose sensitive information,” former director of counterintelligence at the National Security Council Holden Triplett said. 

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