7. Intelligence Community · Notable
Halt all current CIA hiring to prevent 'burrowing in'
Printed page 208 7. Intelligence Community
“This includes halting all current hiring to prevent the “burrowing in” of outgoing political personnel. Additional appointees should be placed within the agency as needed to assist the Director in supervising its functioning.”
What has happened
- Not started
The government-wide hiring freeze does not reach the CIA. The Presidential Memorandum of 2025-01-20 froze federal civilian hiring "throughout the executive branch" but provides in terms that "This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety", and it expired for every agency except the IRS once OMB issued its workforce plan. No CIA-specific hiring halt was found: cia.gov's press index carries none, and P.L. 119-60 Division F subtitle A legislates on CIA expenditures, installation security, workplace climate, chaplains and procurement without touching hiring.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Operative text read at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-01-28/html/2025-01905.htm, which serves the memorandum unblocked; the national-security carve-out is in the second paragraph.
- The Quote’s stated purpose — preventing the “burrowing in” of outgoing political personnel — is a transition-window action. Nothing on cia.gov, in the Federal Register or in the federal records we keep and search records such an action, and internal hiring decisions leave no public instrument. Not started with the search recorded is the honest answer.
- This ask is also covered by a single negative search of the CIA internal-management asks on pp. 208-212.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- Current CIA hiring
- ID
- 540