Left: Donald Trump speaks at the annual Road to Majority conference in Washington, DC, in June 2024 (Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP). Right: Dr. Terry Adirim (Department of Defense).
A federal judge in Virginia has temporarily blocked the CIA from firing a top-ranking doctor who is suing the U.S. intelligence agency over her termination last month, which she blames on influence from far-right “internet trolls” and “political extremists.”
Dr. Terry Adirim, director of the CIA’s Center for Global Health Services, is suing the agency and far-right political commentator Ivan Raiklin, along with Raiklin’s employer America’s Future, for allegedly violating her right to due process and privacy.
Adirim says information about her being recruited and hired by the CIA late last year was leaked to Raiklin and made public by him within days of her “quietly starting work” at the agency. She accuses Raiklin of subjecting her to “vile public abuse,” including social media posts and interview sound bites about how she should be convicted of “genocide and mass mutilation” for being an alleged “architect” of the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, per Adirim’s complaint. Raiklin’s comments and actions ultimately helped influence Adirim’s firing, she says.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff, a Joe Biden appointee, kept an administrative stay in place issued Saturday, in which he ordered the government to “refrain from terminating [Adirim] or otherwise altering her employment status” after Adirim filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Friday.
Nachmanoff wrote Monday in his order keeping the stay in place that Adirim’s firing would remain on hold “as the court awaits full briefing and argument on the motion.”
Nachmanoff gave the CIA until noon Tuesday to file a response to Adirim’s TRO request after it previously failed to do so, along with scheduling a briefing hearing for May 9.
“The majority of Plaintiff’s complaint, and the entire basis of her instant motion, is taken up by a speculative and unsupported theory as to why she was terminated that has no relation to actual events,” wrote U.S. Attorney Erik S. Siebert in the government’s opposition filing on Tuesday afternoon.
“Plaintiff pinpoints the blame not on the CIA, but on a non-governmental actor, Ivan Raiklin, whom she accuses of orchestrating her termination through a scheme of defamation and political influence,” Siebert said. “Besides being farfetched — and untrue — Plaintiff’s allegations do not actually amount to any viable claim against the Federal Defendants, let alone any claim that merits an injunction,” he alleged.
Adirim says she was targeted by Raiklin, a former Green Beret, after being placed on his “Deep State Target List” of people he considers guilty of treason and are “fit to be executed,” according to Adirim’s complaint. She says an “associate” of Raiklin’s — far-right political influencer Laura Loomer — visited the White House and spoke to President Donald Trump just one day before Adirim and other national security officials were terminated.
More from Law&Crime: ‘Plainly illegal’: Trump administration is intentionally ‘sabotaging’ HHS, putting ‘countless lives at risk,’ lawsuit states
“Plaintiff believes that Mr. Raiklin, who she describes as a ‘political extremist,’ asked his ‘close associate’ and fellow ‘political extremist’ Laura Loomer, to ask President Trump to fire Plaintiff; that Ms. Loomer did so; and that President Trump acceded to her request; and that the CIA knowingly terminated Plaintiff because of Mr. Raiklin’s defamatory statements,” Siebert charged (emphasis in original). “Plaintiff’s theory relies almost entirely on inferences drawn from timing and supposed connections between individuals that are simply unsupportable.”
Attempts by Law&Crime to reach Adirim’s lawyer and the CIA for comment on Tuesday were unsuccessful.
