The C.I.A. has moved to dismiss an unspecified number of officers who were working on recruiting and diversity issues, according to former officials, in what would be one of the largest mass firings in the agency’s history.
The possible purge of the officers comes as the agency moves to comply with the spirit of President Trump’s executive order banning efforts to diversify the federal work force.
The C.I.A. on Friday began calling in officers who had been put on administrative leave and telling them to resign or be fired, but a federal court soon halted that action. A judge in the Eastern District of Virginia is scheduled to hold a hearing on Monday to consider a temporary restraining order against the agency.
While presidents often order policy changes at the agency, it is rare for career officers who carried out the priorities of a previous administration to be fired, the former officials said. Former President Barack Obama, for example, ended the C.I.A. interrogation program started under former President George W. Bush but did not fire the officers accused of torturing Al Qaeda prisoners.
The C.I.A. last conducted a large-scale firing in 1977, when President Jimmy Carter ordered the agency to move away from covert action. Stansfield Turner, the C.I.A. director at the time, moved to fire 198 officers involved in clandestine action. But even that downsizing was done with some care, sparing some people who were close to retirement age.
Kevin Carroll, a former C.I.A. officer and a lawyer representing 21 intelligence officers who have sued to stop the new firings, said about 51 officers working in diversity and recruiting were having their positions reviewed.