Some U.S. government workers with top security clearances, fired in recent mass layoffs overseen by Elon Musk, were not given standard exit briefings or guidance on handling foreign adversary approaches, four sources said.
The lack of so-called “read outs” for workers with security clearances dismissed by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in February could raise security risks as they dealt with secret information on everything from managing nuclear weapons to protecting the power grid from influence by adversaries and ensuring the safety of U.S. international development staffers, former security officials said.
Final Security Briefing
Dismissed employees with top-secret clearances are normally given a final security briefing reminding them of the non-disclosure agreements they signed when they got the clearance. They would also sign forms acknowledging that disclosing any kind of classified information is illegal and turn in their laptops, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Two sources with top security clearances dismissed by DOGE, one at the Department of Energy and one former senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, told Reuters they were not debriefed.
Another worker still at the DOE, said several of the 28 workers fired on February 14 at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nation’s nuclear arsenal, had clearances and were not debriefed. The fourth source is a person familiar with the situation at USAID.
Both DOE sources said the laptops of fired workers had been cut off from access to department data but that they were not immediately required to hand those in.
There were more than 1.25 million U.S. government workers, contractors and others who held top-secret clearances as of October 2019, according to the most recent unclassified report published on the issue by the U.S. Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC).
It is not known how many were fired by DOGE without being given the final security debriefing.
DOE Reinforces Obligations
A DOE spokesperson said the department “is taking the appropriate steps to ensure all recently dismissed Energy employees are reminded of their obligations to the United States as defined by federal law.”
The State Department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kevin Carroll, a former undercover CIA officer who is now a lawyer at Fluet, said the failure to conduct final briefings for U.S. officials holding top-secret clearances was a “terrible counterintelligence risk.”
“When you get read of the programme, they remind you that you agreed to keep the information confidential and it would violate the Espionage Act if you don’t,” he said.
Officials at the briefing also instructed outgoing personnel what to do if approached by a foreign intelligence service and offered money to provide classified material.
The U.S. government is on heightened alert about foreign adversaries attempting to steal U.S. data and technology and recruit Americans as spies.
“Foreign spies routinely pose as commercial head-hunters on professional networking sites to target individuals for recruitment or information gathering purposes,” NCSC posted on X on Feb. 25.
U.S. law enforcement and counterintelligence officials have long said Chinese espionage agencies are using social media accounts to try to recruit Americans with access to government and commercial secrets.
(With inputs from Reuters)
