Fred Fleitz warns Newsmax: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies are damaging the CIA

Author and former CIA official Fred Fleitz told Newsmax on Monday that diversity programs have done “severe” damage to the agency.

In an interview on Monday, Fleitz criticized the CIA for its diversity programs, which he blamed for a recent controversy involving a senior analyst posting on social media about Hamas.

During an interview on “Wake Up America,” Fleitz said, “We all want to see fairness and diversity in government agencies, we want equal opportunity. But something appalling happened recently when a fairly junior CIA employee who became the number two of the analyst’s office, she was overseeing thousands of analysts, and she also has edited the Presidential Daily Brief. She posted pro-Hamas propaganda on her Facebook page after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel.”

The CIA has not released the name of the analyst who has come under criticism, but the agency updated its guidelines on social media use for employees following the controversy.

Fleitz continued, “Now, I was with the CIA for 19 years, and ordinarily, you couldn’t get into these jobs without a huge amount of experience and expertise, especially editor of the Presidential Daily Brief, arguably the most important intelligence product the CIA produces. This person was pushed up the line for DEI reasons, and frankly, this is someone who shouldn’t have been hired by the CIA in the first place.”

He added that after he criticized the agency, “CIA officers, former officers all over the place reached out to me and said how the personnel system has been distorted. It started with [former CIA Director] John Brennan. People … are being promoted for political reasons and for social engineering reasons under DEI. I think the damage to [the] CIA has been severe.”

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