Musk visits CIA to discuss downsizing efforts

WASHINGTON — Elon Musk visited CIA headquarters Monday to discuss his efforts to downsize the government as a federal judge ordered the agency to reconsider its firings of employees who had been assigned to diversity recruiting.

The CIA in February moved to fire some of the people who had worked on diversity issues, pursuant to an executive order from President Donald Trump and guidance from his administration.

The court initially declined to block that move. But on Monday, Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia ordered the agency to grant appeals to 51 officers and consider them for other jobs at the CIA, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

“The judge decided there are constitutional, statutory and regulatory rights related to a reduction in force,” said Kevin Carroll, the lawyer. “The CIA director has to listen to appeals from these officers in good faith and they have to be reconsidered for jobs in the intelligence community. There are no performance or security allegations against any of these people.”

Officials would not describe in detail the nature of Musk’s visit. But CIA Director John Ratcliffe has been shrinking the agency and considering a wider reorganization.

In a statement, a CIA spokesperson said Musk was at the headquarters at the invitation of Ratcliffe “to discuss government efficiency.”

Musk previously visited the National Security Agency, which collects some of the most valuable intelligence, scooping up telephone and computer communications around the world.

Officials said final decisions haven’t been made about the CIA’s reorganization, but former officials and congressional aides have said the agency has considered undoing some Obama-era changes that created mission centers focused on different parts of the world.

That reorganization was designed by the CIA director at the time, John Brennan. Ratcliffe has been deeply critical of Brennan.

“It would be fair to say his tenure was one of the worst things that has ever happened to the agency,” Ratcliffe said in an interview with Breitbart News.

In addition to moving to fire some of the officers involved in diversity recruiting, the agency has also dismissed about 80 people in other jobs who had been hired within the past two years. Officials have said the reductions are based on performance, but former officials and members of Congress have expressed doubt about the criteria used to terminate the employees.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia wrote in a letter to the plaintiffs that they had until Monday evening to decide whether they would resign, retire or be fired.

“It’s like telling a person you can choose one of three ways of execution — electric chair, hanging or firing,” Carroll said.

Trenga had earlier said that Ratcliffe had broad powers to fire employees but strongly suggested that he consider allowing the employees to appeal.

After that ruling, the U.S. attorney’s office said in the letter that there would be no appeal.

“There is no process to appeal this decision within the agency or otherwise seek reassignment within the agency,” the letter said. “Accordingly, the agency is moving forward with the separation of these officers.”

In a court filing, the government argued that the law that established the CIA, the National Security Act of 1947, gives the director unfettered power to terminate any officer if it is “necessary or advisable in the interests of the United States.”

But on Monday, Trenga made his earlier suggestion an order, telling the CIA that it had to allow employees to appeal their termination and that the agency had to consider new positions for the officers, Carroll said.

Several of the CIA employees had multiple offers to work elsewhere in the agency. The firings of the probationary employees and the people who have worked on diversity issues have eroded morale at the agency, according to former officials.

In a meeting with agency officers Friday, Ratcliffe was confronted with a series of questions about the terminations.

Ratcliffe, according to people briefed on the meeting, did not directly answer a question about the diversity-worker firings, citing the ongoing litigation.

A spokesperson for the agency declined to directly comment on Musk’s meeting, the judge’s order or the firings. But in a statement, she said Ratcliffe was working to “ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Trump administration’s national security priorities.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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