The Central Intelligence Agency this week fired a whistleblower who allegedly was assaulted and prompted dozens of others at the spy agency to come forward with complaints of sexual misconduct.
The woman’s account of a 2022 assault that occurred in a stairwell at the CIA’s Langley, Va. headquarters was reported to law enforcement and led to her testifying at a closed-door congressional hearing.
She later filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the agency after reportedly facing “slut shaming” and retaliation during performance reviews. In the suit, she accused the agency of releasing her personal information during the prosecution of Ashkan Bayatpour, a then-fellow CIA trainee convicted of assaulting her with a scarf.
The 36-year-old woman’s termination came less than six months after she filed that suit, which her attorney described as brazen retaliation.
The CIA “unlawfully ended a young woman’s career only because she had the moral courage, lacking in her managers, to stand up and be a witness about her sexual assault,” her attorney, Kevin Carroll, said. “The agency’s festering workplace sexual violence problem is now harming the retention of young women who won’t put up with it any longer.”
In response to her whistleblowing, at least 24 more women came forward with sexual misconduct complaints regarding incidents that occurred in the U.S. and abroad, which were allegedly covered up.
The agency said it has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual misconduct and denied...
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