I believe that the biggest mistake of the West is believing they control someone if they can "fire" someone. No, you control someone, if you can kill them. And CIA definitely has this ability. "Firing" only works when civilization is working properly. But as soon as the institutes of power degrade (and they do degrade cyclically everywhere), you need a stronger incentive. Deepstate has this incentive. Blackmail and assassination are much better levers to pull.

We have seen this with Trump administration. Sure, he could fire people. But at some point he couldn't even staff everything with best candidates for the job, because nobody wanted to endanger themselves. Back then deepstate just used different movements like metoo to embroil someone in court. But this time, the threats might be stronger.