Worries Grow that Laid Off Feds are Prime Targets to Become Spies for Enemies, Criminal Syndicates
Fired federal employees are prime targets to become informants or spies for adversaries like China and Russia.
That’s one of the concerns floating around the intelligence community after the Trump Administration’s purge of thousands of federal employees.
Former feds have treasure troves of information on everything from military and nuclear secrets, to trade and economic information, to information on data collected on Americans and adversaries.
“This information is highly valuable, and it shouldn’t be surprising that Russia and China and other organizations — criminal syndicates for instance — would be aggressively recruiting government employees,” said Theresa Payton, former White House chief information officer under President George W. Bush.
Other experts say people can be motivated to sell out their country by “Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego,” otherwise known as MICE.
“Foreign intelligence services look for individuals who feel alienated, undervalued, or mistreated,” said Irina Tsukerman, president of threat assessment firm Scarab Rising. “Those who are forced out of their positions – whether due to downsizing, policy disagreements, security clearance revocations, or other workplace conflicts – may harbor resentment.”
And while other governments have routinely recruited Americans before, the scale of available talent to turn into foreign agents is unprecedented.
“This happens even in good times — someone in the intelligence community who for personal financial or other reasons walks into an embassy to sell America out — but DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is taking it to a whole new level,” said John Schindler, a former counterintelligence official.
China Recruitment
And it may already be happening.
Reuters reports that a network of shell companies owned by a Chinese tech firm is trying to recruit dismissed federal employees.
That reporting is based on analysis by Foundation for Defense of Democracies analyst Max Lesser, who says that some companies placing recruitment ads were "part of a broader network of fake consulting and headhunting firms targeting former government employees and AI researchers."
The companies had overlapping websites and were hosted at the same IP address alongside Smiao Intelligence, an internet services company.
Reuters’ attempts to track down the four companies and Smiao hit dead ends.
Lesser told Reuters the campaign follows techniques previously used by China.
"What makes this activity significant," Lesser said, "is that the network seeks to exploit the financial vulnerabilities of former federal workers affected by recent mass layoffs.”
Not Just Intelligence Workers
Yet other experts are warning that the biggest danger comes not from the intelligence community, but from upset workers at other agencies.
“When it comes to the theft of intellectual property, when it comes to the theft of sensitive technology, when it comes to access to power grids or to financial systems, an IRS guy or a Social Service guy who’s really upset about what DOGE is doing, they actually are the bigger risk,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired senior FBI official and former top U.S. government counterintelligence executive.
Trump Administration Pushes Back
Still the Trump Administration insists that it is taking all precautions to prevent any former government employee from going rogue.
In a statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said it would investigate any claims that a member of the intelligence community was releasing information.
And the U.S. Coast Guard Counterintelligence Service (CGCIS) sent out a warning to be on the lookout for foreign adversaries trying to recruit federal workers.
In that warning, CGCIS warns that foreign governments scour LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, and Chinese social media site Xiaohongshu – known as RedNote – for potential sources.