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The Central Intelligence Agency will fire an unreleased number of junior officers as President Donald Trump's efforts to downsize and reshape the federal government reverberate through America's intelligence community. The agency will review personnel hired within the past two years, an agency spokesperson said Thursday, and those officers with behavioral issues or who are deemed a poor fit for intelligence work will be laid off. The spokesperson said not everyone proves to be able to handle the pressures of the job. The cuts are part of sweeping staffing reductions at agencies across the federal government made by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. Some agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development, have been largely dismantled. While intelligence agencies have been spared the deepest cuts, they haven't been immune. In February the CIA offered buyouts to some employees. The typically secretive agency has not said how many employees accepted the offer. Trump's recently
The Senate has confirmed John Ratcliffe as CIA director, giving President Donald Trump the second member of his new Cabinet. Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence during Trump's first term and is the first person to have held that position and the top post at the CIA, the nation's premier spy agency. The Texas Republican is a former federal prosecutor who emerged as a fierce Trump defender while serving as a congressman during Trump's first impeachment. The vote was 74-25. At his Senate hearing last week, Ratcliffe said the CIA must do better when it comes to using technology such as artificial intelligence to confront adversaries including Russia and China. He said the United States needed to improve its intelligence capabilities while also ensuring the protection of Americans' civil rights. Ratcliffe said that if confirmed, he would push the CIA to do more to harness technologies such as AI and quantum computing while expanding use of human intelligence collection. "W
US President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced William J Burns as his nominee for Director of the CIA. A career diplomat, who served in the US Foreign Service for 33 years and also served in a number of national security positions across five Democratic and Republican presidential administrations, is currently president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest international affairs think tank in the United States. Bill Burns is an exemplary diplomat with decades of experience on the world stage keeping our people and our country safe and secure, Biden said in a statement. Burns is a consummate professional full of integrity who will bring the facts and independence that our national security demands, the transition said. Whether its cyber attacks emanating from Moscow, the challenge China poses, or the threat we face from terrorists and other non-state actors, he has the experience and skill to marshal efforts across government and around the world to ensure