Julia Curlee was spending Saturday with her family when the call arrived.
Her CIA assignment was over. After years of government service—including work under both Donald Trump administrations and a role advising Vice President Mike Pence—the decorated intelligence officer was being removed.
But before the conversation ended, her boss made a request so contradictory that it left CNN anchor Dana Bash visibly stunned when Curlee recounted it publicly Tuesday.
The agency wanted her back at work Monday morning.
“So I was fired on Saturday and asked to return,” Curlee said.
The extraordinary instruction came, according to Curlee, because the administration was still dependent on her expertise even as it pushed her out. She was handling an important budget matter, helping a new leadership team establish itself and managing a complicated transition involving years of work.
“Yeah, they still needed me,” she explained.
That sentence transformed her dismissal from another bureaucratic personnel decision into a disturbing account of an experienced intelligence officer allegedly targeted for who she was—even while officials apparently recognized that they could not immediately function without her.
Curlee, who is transgender, told Bash that her removal came shortly after right-wing activist Laura Loomer publicly demanded that her identity be exposed.
“Laura Loomer had demanded my identity,” Curlee said, describing Loomer’s call for someone to reveal her name publicly so that critics could “drive out this trans Biden holdover.”
The description did not fit Curlee’s actual employment history. She was not simply a Biden-era political appointee placed inside the intelligence community. By her account, she had worked under Trump before, serving during his first administration as a security adviser to Pence.
Curlee also continued working during Trump’s second administration—until the abrupt Saturday call ending her tour.
The timing led Curlee to connect her dismissal to Loomer’s campaign against her. However, the supplied reporting does not establish that Loomer formally directed the CIA’s decision or prove the administration’s precise motivation.
Bash nevertheless focused on the sequence of events and its apparent absurdity.
“So you’re fired on a Saturday, when you’re out with your family, after a not-so-subtle tweet from Laura Loomer about you,” Bash said, “and then they said, ‘But please come back on Monday anyway, even though we’re firing you?’”
Curlee confirmed the account.
Officials still required her help because she was working on what she characterized as a significant budget item. The incoming administration was also still organizing its operations, while Curlee said two years of turnover had to be completed.
In other words, the officer deemed removable on Saturday apparently remained indispensable by Monday.
The story raises serious questions about how national-security personnel decisions are being made, particularly when outside political activists publicly identify government employees and demand their removal.
Intelligence agencies depend heavily on accumulated experience. Officers can spend years developing specialized knowledge, managing classified programs and learning systems that cannot be transferred through a short memo or hurried meeting.
Removing such an employee for legitimate performance or security reasons would be one matter. Removing an officer because of political pressure or gender identity would raise profoundly different concerns—especially if the agency still required that person’s immediate assistance.
Curlee’s recollection of her time with Pence further complicated the portrayal of her as an enemy hidden inside a Republican administration.
She described an “incredible” personal moment in which the former vice president comforted her mother, who had been struggling to accept Curlee’s transition.
Bash remarked that the gesture was “nice,” offering a brief human counterpoint to the political confrontation surrounding Curlee’s departure.
But the interview repeatedly returned to the central contradiction: an administration allegedly willing to remove a decorated transgender officer, yet unwilling—or unable—to let her stop working immediately.
The episode also illustrates the extraordinary influence that activists can wield in Trump’s political orbit. Loomer has repeatedly used social media to scrutinize officials she considers disloyal or ideologically unacceptable. Public targeting can quickly become a loyalty test, placing pressure on agencies to explain why a named employee remains in government.
For intelligence professionals, that environment could carry consequences far beyond individual careers. CIA officers frequently depend on discretion, institutional protection and confidence that personnel decisions will be based on mission requirements—not online outrage.
Curlee’s story suggests that those boundaries may have been breached. Her identity became a political issue. Her position ended. Yet the importance of her work apparently did not disappear with the phone call.
The administration could tell Curlee that her service was over.
What it could not do, at least immediately, was complete the job without her.
That was the detail that stopped Bash—and may prove the most revealing part of Curlee’s account. She was allegedly considered too politically inconvenient to keep, but too professionally valuable to let go.
