More Than 100 Intelligence Officers Fired for Inappropriate Chats

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ordered the firing of more than 100 intelligence officers after they exchanged sexually explicit and other inappropriate messages on an internal agency message board. Security clearances will also be revoked. 

The employees worked at 15 agencies within the intelligence community and were exchanging messages on Intelink, a platform run by the National Security Agency (NSA) and used to connect agents all over the world. Agents were reportedly exchanging sexually explicit and other vulgar messages on the messaging system. 

“When you see what these people were saying — they were brazen in using an NSA platform intended for professional use to conduct this kind of really, really horrific behavior,” said Director Gabbard on Fox News Channel. “There are over 100 people from across the intelligence community that contributed to and participated in what is really just an egregious violation of trust.”

In a post on X NSA said, “Potential misuse of these platforms by a small group of individuals does not represent the community. Investigations to address this misuse of government systems are ongoing.”

Intelligence Community Reacts

Former senior intelligence official Larry Pfeiffer, now at George Mason University, said there have always been issues with racist chats, bullying, and politics on the chatrooms. However, he told the Washington Post that offenders usually aren’t terminated. 

“When complaints were levied, investigations were conducted and usually administrative actions were taken if warranted,” said Pfeiffer. “I can’t ever remember anyone being fired.”

Another contractor said that employees are stopping chats on nonwork subjects out of fear. 

“People like to chat while we’re working because we don’t have access to the outside world most of the time,” said the anonymous worker to the Post. 

The inappropriate posts were first flagged by conservative activist Christopher Rufo. That prompted Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to write on X– “MAJOR house cleaning needed.”

Separately, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) fired about a dozen workers working on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) issues. The mass firings are an unusual move for the agency, which flagged that more firings could be coming. A judge temporarily paused those terminations last week.