The director of the agency’s Center for Global Health Services was dismissed a month short of qualifying for full federal retirement benefits, according to a lawsuit.
The C.I.A. fired its top doctor after she was targeted by far-right activists who have worked to oust government officials they see as disloyal, according to a lawsuit filed Friday evening.
Late last year, the C.I.A. recruited the doctor, Terry Adirim, to take a top medical job as the director of the agency’s Center for Global Health Services. Within days, Ivan Raiklin, a far-right provocateur, accused her of being the “architect” of the Pentagon’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate.
Dr. Adirim, 61, had served in a top medical role in the Defense Department in 2021 when Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III mandated that all service members receive a Covid vaccination.
Mr. Raikin, who has called himself President Trump’s “secretary of retribution,” is a former Green Beret who became an intense critic of the Covid vaccine. He published a “Deep State Target List” of 350 individuals he accused of treason. According to the suit, Mr. Raiklin also singled out Dr. Adirim for criticism.
Appearing on Rosanne Barr’s podcast, Mr. Raiklin accused Dr. Adirim of “genocide and mass mutilation” for her support of the vaccine.
In since-deleted post on social media directed at John Ratcliffe, who had been chosen by Mr. Trump to lead the agency, Mr. Raiklin suggested that Dr. Adirim was “burrowing in” at the agency, a term for political appointees taking civil service jobs.