Russia & China target vulnerable US federal staff on LinkedIn, recruiting fired employees under guise of job opps.

Question

Russia and China, have ramped up recruitment efforts targeting US federal employees—particularly those recently fired or at risk of termination. These efforts are unfolding aggressively on LinkedIn, where adversaries are reaching out under the guise of job opportunities, networking, and consulting.

Answer 1

According to a CNN report, this claim is credible. Although there are no sources linked in the original Bluesky post, upon searching the web for this topic, I came across one main article, the CNN report, that seems to be the origin of this claim. It mentions how, "a document produced by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said the intelligence community assessed with 'high confidence' that foreign adversaries were trying to recruit federal employees and 'capitalize' on the Trump administration’s plans for mass layoffs". Although this document and other government sources mentioned in the article were not able to be accessed, the breadth of information that CNN covers in the article backs it up well. In addition, the CNN article and others like this one from The Independent emphasize how these claimed recruitment efforts just make sense  - federal employees who may be bitter from being fired could be the perfect targets for gaining info on another country; the CNN article even says, "the CIA also aggressively seeks to recruit disaffected government employees in adversarial countries 'all the time'". The CNN article also confirms the use of LinkedIn as is mentioned, and includes the fact that TikTok, RedNote and Reddit could be used as well.

Unfortunately, the only great source on this issue is the CNN article, but from what I can see, other sources aren't available to be accessed because they are government documents. Based on this article, then, the claim is true.

Comments

I think it is worth noting that this claim is -tentatively- true, as you said, the only source is CNN, which while a fairly reputable source, does have its fair share of incorrect reporting on past subjects, so it is possible this might not be true. All that said, nothing about this screams that it is false, but I feel that the information available now is not enough to truly give it a stamp of approval

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While I think this fact check is going in the right direction, I do think you should reconsider labeling the claim as true. If you were only able to find one source, the CNN article, that should not be considered substantial enough to accept as fact. Not to say the claim is per se false, as it may still very well be true, but we cannot rely on things that "make sense," when the evidence is not accessible or verifiable. Potential avenues for this activity existing does not necessarily mean that behavior is being conducted.

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While I agree with the majority of what you said, it's worth noting that CNN has a potentially unreliable undisclosed source. Although this shouldn't be an issue as CNN rarely publishes false information.

Answer 2

This claim appears to be true, but needs more confirmation. Reliable sources like CNN , Independent, and the Kyiv Independent all reported on this issue claiming it to be true, but each source cited CNN as their source. If CNN's source "familiar with American Intelligence" happens to happens to be wrong, then each of these sources have no factual foundation for this information to be true.