Frenzy Over CIA Moonlighting Overblown

Earlier this month, a report by Politico’s Eamon Javers revealed that many CIA employees were moonlighting in side jobs outside the agency which set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill.  FrumForum interviewed former CIA officials, and Congressman Peter Hoekstra, the lead Republican on the intelligence committee for their views on this practice.  Many in this group defended the practice and noted its limited scope.

In an interview with FrumForum about his article, Javers, the author of Broker, Trader, Lawyer, and Spy, argued that CIA officials should not be allowed to moonlight at all.  One former analyst who describes himself as “old school” agreed with Javers.  This analyst stressed that he wanted CIA employees “to have a single loyalty.  The people needed are those who are dedicated, and not in it for the money, the fame, or the recognition.”

But others interviewed emphasized that CIA officials would not have to moonlight if they received the same benefits and salary as other agencies.  A former high ranking official cited two bones of contention.  One is that FBI, DEA, and Secret Service get full retirement after 20 years because they have stressful jobs while OPS officers do not.  Another is that if a CIA officer dies in the line of duty their family only gets a small amount of monetary compensation compared to other agency officials.

A CIA position requires a complete commitment with a sense of sacrifice from their employees, so shouldn’t they be paid accordingly? A former official pointed out that “there’s a high cost of living in the Washington D.C. area, and despite what folks outside the government think, it’s hard to afford to live comfortably.”

Many of the officials FF spoke with pointed out that the CIA already had policies in place for handling moonlighting. One former official emphasized that requests to moonlight are already approved on a case-by-case basis: “the right folks handle it, applying the right criteria.” Former CIA Director Michael Hayden concurred with the case-by-case approach stating that “I don’t want my counter-terrorism specialists who work 65 hours a week to have another job.  On the other hand, the people on the security force can do it.”  He also noted that other departments such as the military allow for moonlighting dependent on approval.  To him, this should be a non-issue and he felt Javers “took it to the cave, not just the darkest corner of the room.”

Congressman Hoekstra agreed with Hayden, explaining that what people do in “their own personal time as long as it’s legal is their own personal business.”  For the congressman, there is no difference between moonlighting in a benign job and training for the triathlon.  Neither should have an effect on a person’s job performance and he pointed out that agency employees face thorough follow-up reviews.

Marie Huff, a CIA spokesperson told FrumForum that:

The agency reviews requests for outside employment using yardsticks of legality, propriety, and, of course, security.  There’s a rigorous process to all this—one that’s been in place for decades.  Requests for outside employment go through several layers of approval.  The CIA’s mission always—always—comes first when such requests are examined for approval or denial.  It’s wrong to think these individuals simply transferred current operational tradecraft to a for-profit venture.  The fact that people have the energy and creativity in working at a business outside of work hours shouldn’t be held against them.  This is America, after all.

Furthermore, many of those interviewed stressed that allowing moonlighting should depend on the types of second jobs. In his article, Javers described how one firm, Business Intelligence Advisors (BIA), had hired CIA employees to help with “Tactical Behavior Assistance,” the ability to scrutinize a subject to determine their truthfulness.  Javers told FrumForum that BIA informed him that they employ many retired intelligence workers and that “they do not use active CIA employees anymore but have done it in the past.”  He did not know when BIA stopped hiring active employees, how prevalent it was, when this practice started, or the job specialty of the CIA person hired.

The former operatives interviewed did not know of anyone in their job specialty who would work for a Wall Street firm while being currently employed by the CIA.  One sarcastically stated that “the clandestine service operatives are usually too busy stealing secrets and recruiting spies to do much of anything else.” Many of those interviewed speculated that the job specialty of the BIA’s moonlighters were CIA polygraph operators, or as Hayden referred to them, “security professionals.”  A former retired CIA official noted that if this was the case, there was no conflict of interest.

Everybody interviewed agreed with a former high-ranking CIA official who stated that retired employees are “entitled to use the experiences they’ve had, the knowledge they’ve gained and the practices they’ve learned as long as it doesn’t violate any classified information.”