Braxton Taylor
The CIA has sent the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation” offer to its employees, the first intelligence agency to do so. An aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe told the Wall Street Journal that the move is intended to help focus the agency on drug cartels, China, and even friendly Western Hemisphere countries. “For example, the CIA will use espionage to give [President Donald] Trump extra leverage in his trade negotiations, potentially spying on Mexico’s government amid the ongoing trade spat, the aide said.” The White House had previously withheld the offer from national-security workers, but Ratcliffe asked to extend it to CIA employees, the aide said. Read on, here.
The deal purports to enable federal employees who agree to resign to stop working but receive their full pay until Sept. 30. But the fine print “made it clear that employees could be required to work until their official resignation date. This means that federal employees could be agreeing to resign in exchange for nothing,” wrote independent journalist Judd Legum.
No recourse if Trump reneges: Signing the deal also signs away the right to take action if the U.S. government does not hold up its end, according to Section 13 of a memo released on Monday by the White House’s Office of Personnel Management.
About 20,000 federal workers have accepted the offer so far, a White House officials told reporters on Tuesday—about 1% of the federal workforce. Legum: “In a typical year, about 6% of the federal workforce turns over, so most of those accepting the deal may have been planning to quit or retire anyway. The administration was hoping to convince 5-10% of federal employees to resign.” Read on, here.
The deal might be illegal, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told WSJ: “There’s no statutory authority that I can see for the president making this offer…The administration immediately knows, you don’t want to work for me. They’ll find some other way to get rid of you. You should not raise your hand.”
Assault on USAID continues. Employees with the congressionally established U.S. Agency for International Development began receiving notice on Tuesday that they are being placed on “excused absence” immediately and indefinitely, according to a memo obtained by Government Executive. The memo was sent from the government email address of Gavin Kliger, one of half-dozen protégés of Elon Musk, but ostensibly authored by USAID Acting Deputy Administrator for Policy and Planning Pete Marocco, GovExec’s Erich Wagner reported.
Closing USAID will help China and Russia and hurt countries friendly to the United States, current and former government officials told Defense One’s Patrick Tucker. Ukrainian military leaders in Washington said losing USAID funding would undermine their efforts to fend off Russia’s invasion and would lead to the unnecessary deaths of troops and civilians. “We should understand that it’s not only about some small projects in some NGOs. It’s about people’s lives,” one Ukrainian commander said Monday. Read on, here.
Related: Arms supplies to Ukraine were briefly paused last week “as the Trump administration debated its policy towards Kyiv, according to four people briefed on the matter,” Reuters reported on Monday.
See also: “Ethics concerns surround Musk’s dual role as defense CEO, federal employee,” via Washington Technology, reporting Tuesday.
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1958, the U.S. Air Force lost a hydrogen bomb somewhere off the east coast of the U.S., near Savannah, Georgia, after an F-86 fighter plane collided with a B-47 bomber at about 2 a.m. local time. Fortunately, no one perished in the accident, but the bomb was never recovered.
Trump’s latest imperial pitch
Trump offered for the U.S. to take control of Gaza in what’s being described as a “surprise proposal,” which could commit the U.S. to “exactly the kind of foreign entanglement he told voters he would avoid,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The Associated Press described the plan as a “stunning proposal to forcibly transfer hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and develop it as a tourist destination.”
Trump pitched the idea during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday at the White House.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” Trump declared. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” he said. “It’s going to end up the same way it has for 100 years.”
A reporter requested clarification, asking Trump, “You are talking tonight about the United States taking over a sovereign territory. What authority would allow you to do that? Are you talking about a permanent occupation there, redevelopment?”
Trump replied, “I do see a long-term ownership position and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East,” he said.
“Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs is something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know.”
Officials from Saudi Arabia and Turkey have already outright rejected the plan. And leaders from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Palestine were already on record opposing such relocation proposals. AP notes that the Saudis also emphasized in their statement that they “won’t normalize relations with Israel — a key goal of the Trump administration — without the establishment of a Palestinian state including Gaza.” Read more, here.
Trump’s Defense Department
Deportation flights from the Texas Army base at Fort Bliss to Guantanamo began Tuesday, with the Air Force’s first such C-17 ferrying roughly a dozen detained immigrants to the U.S. military’s detention center sometime in the afternoon, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The facilities there are currently equipped for up to 120 migrants. The White House ultimately wants to send as many as 30,000 to Guantanamo, which could take months to fully prepare. It’s unclear if any of those sent Tuesday had a criminal record.
Worth noting: “Trump’s plan also raises many legal questions, such as whether ICE plans to set up tribunals at the military base for adjudicating immigration cases,” the Journal acknowledges. More, here.
El Salvador’s authoritarian leader offered Trump his “mega-prison” to jail Americans and immigrants. The plan was made public this week during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s travels to the region, including a visit with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador.
Worth noting: El Salvador has the highest prison rate in the world, the Wall Street Journal points out, with one out of every 57 citizens incarcerated in a country of just over 6 million people. The country’s leader has ruled under emergency powers since 2022.
Background: “Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bukele has sought to forge an image of an iconoclast willing to crack down on crime while upending traditional government institutions,” the New York Times reports, and adds, “While El Salvador once had one of the world’s highest murder rates, killings have plummeted as Mr. Bukele has used a state-of-emergency declaration and the military to arrest tens of thousands of people around the country, mostly without due process.”
Rubio called it “the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”
Elon Musk replied, “Great idea!” in response to the plan on social media.
Said President Trump of the plan on Tuesday: “If we had the legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
However, “He almost surely does not have the legal right to do it, legal experts say, and any attempt to carry out President Nayib Bukele’s plan would probably be challenged in court,” the Times reports. Read more at CBS News.
Monitoring: The Pentagon is allegedly “making plans to withdraw all US troops from Syria,” Ragıp Soylu reported in a short post on social media Wednesday.
Related reading: “Syria’s Sharaa to discuss defense pact with Turkey’s Erdogan,” Reuters reported Tuesday.
Marines alter F-35 plans. The Corps will aim to buy more carrier-based F-35Cs and fewer VTOL F-35Bs, according to its new aviation plan, which was released on Monday. Surprising analysts, the plan—the first update in three years—does not apparently call for more UAVs. Defense One’s Audrey Decker has the story, here.
The Army’s academy at West Point just disbanded its student clubs related to multiculturalism, citing compliance with President Trump’s aggressive anti-diversity campaign, Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Disbanded organizations include:
- Asian-Pacific Forum Club;
- Contemporary Cultural Affairs Seminar Club;
- Japanese Forum Club;
- Korean-American Relations Seminar;
- Latin Cultural Club;
- National Society of Black Engineers Club;
- Native American Heritage Forum;
- Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers;
- Society of Women Engineers Club;
- Vietnamese-American Cadet Association, and more.
Background: For several decades, a significant portion of the American political right has made no secret of its disdain for tolerance and pluralism. But in the wake of George Floyd protests and the Covid-19 pandemic, that hostility escalated notably as Christian nationalists within the party increasingly paired its agenda to Trump’s—with Project 2025 as the latest and arguably most ambitious illustration of these shared goals—helping propel his ascent to a second term as president.
ICYMI: The U.S. military under Trump is no longer celebrating minorities during the work day, former Fox TV host and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Friday. “Efforts to divide the force—to put one group ahead of another—erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,” Hegseth claimed. He did not cite any evidence to support his claim.
Hegseth’s ban includes:
- National African American/Black History Month;
- Women’s History Month;
- Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month;
- Pride Month;
- National Hispanic Heritage Month;
- National Disability Employment Awareness Month;
- and National American Indian Heritage Month.
Troops and civilians can attend related events after work hours, just not during duty hours or in any official capacities, according to Hegseth’s new mandate.
Related reading:
ICYMI
The Pentagon ended its 10-day social-media pause a bit early, Defense Scoop reported on Monday.
DOD public-affairs officials ejected two major news organizations from offices so pro-Trump outlets could move in. That’s bad news, argue Price Floyd, a former acting assistant defense secretary for public affairs, and Kevin Baron, Defense One’s founding editor, in an oped for the Washington Post.
Also this week: Trump taps scientist involved in “Sharpiegate” to lead NOAA, the Washington Post reports.
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