CIA offers buyouts to entire workforce to align with Trump priorities, WSJ reports

(Reuters) - The Central Intelligence Agency offered buyouts to its entire workforce Tuesday, citing an aim to bring the agency in line with U.S. President Donald Trump's priorities, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The U.S. spy agency is also freezing the hiring of job applicants already given a conditional offer, the WSJ reported, quoting an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

The aide, not named in the report, said some of those frozen offers are likely to be rescinded if the applicants do not have the right background for the agency's new goals, which include targeting drug cartels, Trump's trade war and undermining China.

The agency does not disclose its budget or the number of people it employs. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A CIA spokeswoman told the Journal that the move was part of an effort to "infuse the agency with renewed energy."

The report of buyout offers is in line with a massive makeover of the U.S. government embarked on by the Trump administration, which has fired and sidelined hundreds of civil servants in first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.

The White House last week offered 2 million civilian full-time federal workers an opportunity to stop working this week and receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30 as Trump seeks to slash the size of the government.

Earlier on Tuesday, unions representing U.S. government employees filed a lawsuit to block the Trump administration's plan to offer buyouts to federal workers.

Ratcliffe, a former member of the House of Representatives who served as Director of National Intelligence during Trump's first term, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as director of the CIA days after Trump took office for his second term.

His aide, according to the WSJ, said Trump's CIA will have a greater focus on the Western Hemisphere, targeting countries not traditionally considered adversaries of the United States.



(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Scott Malone and Edwina Gibbs)