Attempting to recruit disgruntled federal employees

Russia and China attempting to recruit disgruntled federal employees, US intelligence shows

From CNN's Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen

Foreign adversaries including Russia and China have recently directed their intelligence services to ramp up recruiting of US federal employees working in national security, targeting those who have been fired or feel they could be soon, according to four people familiar with recent US intelligence on the issue.

The intelligence indicates that foreign adversaries are eager to exploit the Trump administration’s efforts to conduct mass layoffs across the federal workforce – a plan laid out by the Office of Personnel Management earlier this week.

Russia and China are focusing their efforts on recently fired employees with security clearances and probationary employees at risk of being terminated, who may have valuable information about US critical infrastructure and vital government bureaucracy, two of the sources said. At least two countries have already set up recruitment websites and begun aggressively targeting federal employees on LinkedIn, two of the sources said.

The adversaries think the employees “are at their most vulnerable right now,” another of the sources said. “Out of a job, bitter about being fired, etc.”

“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that these cast aside federal workers with a wealth of institutional knowledge represent staggeringly attractive targets to the intelligence services of our competitors and adversaries,” a third source familiar with the recent US assessments told CNN.

CNN has reached out to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as well as the embassies of China and Russia in Washington for comment.