IN a scenario that sounds more like a plot from a spy thriller, newly declassified U.S. government documents reveal that a fellow American official may have compromised a CIA agent’s cover in Zimbabwe after a night of heavy drinking.
According to reports obtained by Bloomberg journalist Jason Leopold under the Freedom of Information Act, a U.S. government employee working with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Harare allegedly exposed the identity of a covert CIA officer during a series of drunken incidents.
The declassified documents outline how, in September 2019, the USAID official, while intoxicated at a public event attended by foreign nationals, confronted a fellow USAID employee, saying, “I know who you are, I know what you do. It’s cool. It’s cool. I know who you are.”
The incident raised immediate concerns as revealing the identity of intelligence agents is a serious offence under U.S. law.
The U.S. embassy in Zimbabwe reported the incident to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which investigated the matter. The OIG report identified at least five instances where the identity of the covered intelligence officer was potentially disclosed. The findings were referred to USAID/Zimbabwe and the agency’s Office of Security for further action.
In a separate incident, the same USAID staffer made a public joke about a colleague being a “CIA guy” during lunch. In November 2021, a political officer from the Australian Embassy in Zimbabwe, who was a close friend of the accused employee, allegedly told an unvetted U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fellow, that another USAID officer was actually a CIA agent.
The Australian officer then reportedly approached the CIA officer at a busy restaurant in Harare, saying, “you CIA guys should be more open.”
The OIG report noted that the accused employee had a history of heavy drinking. Witnesses claimed that the official often could not remember what had been said during drunken episodes. The employee later admitted to investigators that they may have inadvertently exposed the CIA officer’s identity during a blackout.
As a result of the investigation, the employee was placed on administrative leave, stripped of their security clearance, and eventually retired from their position.
The incident highlights the potential risks to intelligence operations when confidentiality is compromised, even in seemingly casual or social settings.
Click here to view the documents on Zim/USAID (page 357 and 358)
Source: NewZwire