Tony Seruga
@TonySeruga
Okay, here is the truth. CIA Director Ratcliffe has been on an absolute tear. He's done more house-cleaning at Langley than anyone in decades — and predictably, the entrenched bureaucracy is screaming bloody murder about it.
The Purge: What He's Actually Done
Mass Firings & Buyouts
•February 2025: Ratcliffe extended the government-wide deferred resignation buyout program to the entire CIA workforce — the first time any intelligence agency had done this. The pitch was blunt: take the deal and walk, or get on board with the new mission.
•51 DEI-related officers were targeted for termination. A judge temporarily paused the firings of 19 who sued, but a Virginia district judge ultimately ruled Ratcliffe has "sweeping statutory authority" to fire CIA employees at will.
•Probationary employees (those with less than two years at the agency) were systematically reviewed and many were cut. They were summoned to off-site locations, stripped of security credentials, and shown the door. The agency's own statement on this was cold as ice: "Our officers face unique pressures from working in situations that are fast-paced and high-stakes — it's not for everyone."
•Overall headcount reduction: The plan is to shrink the CIA by roughly 1,200 positions over Trump's term, partly through early retirements (several hundred took the deal), partly through reduced hiring, and partly through straight firings.
The DEI Purge
This was arguably the most controversial piece. Officers who'd been rotated into diversity, equity, and inclusion roles — some with 18 years in, just short of their pensions — got axed. Their attorney argued they were just "regular American intelligence officers" doing temporary DEI assignments. Ratcliffe didn't care. The DEI apparatus was seen as a political infection, and he cut it out.
The Bias Report Scandal (2026)
This one's especially revealing. Ratcliffe ordered a review of roughly 300 intelligence reports from the past decade. The President's Intelligence Advisory Board found 19 reports so politically compromised they violated basic tradecraft standards under Intelligence Community Directive 203. Of those:
•17 were permanently deleted
•2 were pulled, revised, and reissued
The reports spanned the tenures of John Brennan, Gina Haspel, and William Burns — and none of those directors had ever rescinded a batch of reports over bias. Ratcliffe's CIA official put it plainly: "There is absolutely no room for bias in any kind of the CIA's work."
If 19 out of 300 were bad enough to delete, what's lurking in the thousands that haven't been reviewed yet?
Why This Matters
This isn't typical bureaucratic reshuffling. Ratcliffe is systematically dismantling what he and Gabbard have openly called the "well-documented politicization" and "weaponization" of the intelligence community. Gabbard has sent criminal referrals for illegal leaks, revoked 67 security clearances, and has 11 more leak investigations underway.
The pearl-clutching from the old guard is exactly what you'd expect. CNN ran breathless pieces about how fired agents might sell secrets to China or Russia. Ratcliffe's response was savage: "You're telling me that a professional setback could cause people to risk the consequences of treason... and your argument is that those are the kind of people who should stay inside CIA?"
The deeper question — and Ratcliffe clearly gets this — is whether an intelligence agency that spent years running DEI programs, producing politically slanted analysis, and leaking against a sitting president was ever really serving the American people in the first place. You don't reform a captured institution with gentle memos and lateral transfers. You clean house.
June 23, 2026