Abigail Spanberger follows the model of the CIA throughout the developing world
In late May, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger vetoed collective bargaining rights legislation— Senate Bill 378 and House Bill 1264—that would have allowed half a million Virginia public workers to organize into unions and be able to negotiate their working conditions and pay rates.
Spanberger is a former CIA case officer who advanced hawkish legislation and CIA talking points while serving in Congress from 2019 to 2025 before she was elected Virginia governor.
Backed by the Virginia Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Virginia firefighter’s union, the legislation Spanberger vetoed was designed to expand on a 2020 law permitting state employees to opt into collective bargaining if their localities allow it.[1]
Spanberger initially supported Senate Bill 378 and even attended an SEIU rally in February in Richmond to support it.
However, she then double-crossed her supporters by developing a new bill—rejected by the legislature—that would have delayed implementation of the law by local governments until 2030 and changed key sections to allow bargaining only when employers deem it “appropriate.”
ATU President John Costa proclaimed that, “while on the campaign trail, Governor Spanberger invoked her grandfather’s union membership to claim that she was one of us. She has since shown us her true colors. When it really counted, history will reflect that Governor Spanberger stabbed us in the back. The Governor had an opportunity to repudiate union-busting in Virginia by passing this legislation and giving workers and their unions a foothold where there was none before. Instead, she has shamefully shown that, when the choice has to be made, she will not hesitate to double-cross us.”
Costa continued: “In multiple jurisdictions across Virginia, supermajorities of transit workers have signed union cards to join the ATU, but their local governments have refused to honor their will to join a union. The Governor had a chance to right this wrong and guarantee these hard-working public servants the same union rights that millions of other workers across the country enjoy. Governor Spanberger claimed in bad faith that the collective bargaining bill went too far and didn’t accommodate the concerns of a group of mayors who have always opposed union rights. If she was truly interested in promoting a collaborative bill, however, she would have worked with the legislature and raised her concerns during the drafting process. Instead, she withheld such feedback, and after the legislature moved the bill forward, she chose to gut the measure by sending back a weak substitute bill to the legislature.”
International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) General President Edward Kelly issued a similarly critical statement, noting that Spanberger’s veto of Senate Bill 378 and House Bill 1264 was “a slap in the face to every worker who put their faith in Abigail Spanberger to deliver. Fire fighters keep their word every single day on the job. It’s a shame the Governor can’t do the same.”[2]
Governor Spanberger provided yet another slap in the face to Virginians by initiating changes to a paid sick leave bill that excluded airline pilots and flight crews, prompting the legislation to be rejected like the collective bargaining bill.
Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) President Captain Jason Ambrosi told the Virginia Mercury that “paid sick leave is not a perk. It is a public health and aviation safety issue. Crew members should not be pressured to fly while ill.”
Additionally, and with backing from Big Pharma, Spanberger proposed amendments to a prescription drug affordability bill that watered it down so much that it was rejected by the legislature.
Sadly, Spanberger’s deceptiveness and betrayal of working-class people fits a long pattern of CIA behavior that CovertAction Magazine has detailed for more than 40 years.
In an April 2025 article CovertAction Magazine reviewed an important book by Jeff Schuhrke, Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade, which discussed how the CIA had infiltrated foreign labor unions in an attempt to purge leftists from them and ultimately weaken and destroy them. CIA assets who infiltrated foreign unions also helped precipitate strikes that were part of coup plots aiming to install right-wing leaders that favored U.S. corporate interests and wanted to push down wages.
Philip Agee, the CIA whistleblower who co-founded CovertAction Information Bulletin, the predecessor of CovertAction Magazine, discussed the CIA’s penetration of foreign labor groups as a key strategy of the capitalist ruling class, which used the CIA to do its dirty work.
Now we can see that this ruling class is using the CIA more and more to do its dirty work within the U.S.—in violation of the CIA’s own charter and domestic U.S. law.
In 2018, Spanberger was part of a wave of former CIA agents who gained election to Congress, mostly as Democrats.
Among these Democrats was Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA officer with three tours in Iraq, who hyped the threat of terrorism as chair of the Intelligence & Counterterrorism Subcommittee within the House Committee on Homeland Security, and pushed for draconian anti-terrorism legislation along with robust aid to Ukraine and Israel, which Spanberger also supported.
To head her transition team as Virginia governor, Spanberger characteristically appointed people with backgrounds as lobbyists, as members of the National Security Council under Joe Biden, or who worked for trillion-dollar Wall Street investment firms like The Vanguard Group and Paladin Capital Group.
These latter firms are driving public policy across the U.S. in collaboration with the Silicon Valley tech oligarchy and the military-industrial-intelligence complex, which has penetrated federal and state government—as Spanberger’s career embodies.
Spanberger’s betrayal of her campaign promises toward working people is reminiscent of Bill Clinton, another Democrat with a CIA background who, as governor of Arkansas in the 1980s, courted electoral support from the AFL-CIO but backed regressive right-to-work legislation that was a barrier to unionization and helped keep wages for workers and taxes for employers low.[3]
In April 1990, the AFL-CIO drafted a resolution condemning Clinton for “deceiving us with broken promises of support for worker’s compensation, right to know and other beneficial legislation. [He has] tricked us on taxes and has further rigged the tax system against workers with more special interest exemptions and loopholes.”[4]
The head of the AFL-CIO in Arkansas at the time, J. Bill Becker, said of Clinton: “He’ll pat you on the back and piss down your leg”—which Virginia labor leaders now know to be true of Spanberger as well.
The legislation was sponsored by Democratic Party legislators Kathy Tran and Scott Surovell, the Virginia Senate Majority leader. ↑
Kelly added that “this bill would strengthen Virginia’s communities by giving fire fighters a voice, and ensuring the safety of their communities, fair pay, and a dignified retirement. That’s why the General Assembly passed this legislation twice.” Virginia Professional Fire Fighters (VPFF) President Robert L. Bragg III said after Spanberger’s veto that “it’s a sad day for all workers in Virginia…. Fire fighters will continue running into danger, saving lives, and making a difference every day in this Commonwealth. Unfortunately, now fire fighters know they can’t trust their Governor to show up for them.” ↑
According to Cord Meyer, Jr., Clinton was recruited by the CIA while a student at Oxford University to carry out a secret mission in the Soviet Union to smuggle out Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschchev’s memoir. In the 1980s, Clinton oversaw a major CIA operation to arm the Contras through clandestine flights out of Mena in the western part of the state. The proceeds from drugs were smuggled back to Mena by pilots operating under Agency cover like Barry Seal, and laundered through Arkansas banks owned by Clinton donors, such as Jackson Stephens who were represented by Hillary Clinton’s Rose Law Firm. See Roger Morris, Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America: (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Books, 2000); Jeremy Kuzmarov, Warmonger: How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Shaped the U.S. Trajectory from Bush II to Biden (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2024). ↑
Quoted in Kuzmarov, Warmonger, 32. ↑
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About the Author
Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University and has taught at numerous colleges across the United States. He is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics and co-hosts a radio show on New York Public Radio and on Progressive Radio News Network called “Uncontrolled Opposition.”
He is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine and is the author of eight books, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019), The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018), Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden (Clarity Press, 2023); with Dan Kovalik, Syria: Anatomy of Regime Change (Baraka Books, 2025), and Political Assassinations in America: The Intricate Nexus of Deep State Crime (Clarity Press, 2026).
Besides these books, Kuzmarov has published hundreds of articles and contributed to numerous edited volumes, including one in the prestigious Oxford History of Counterinsurgency .
He can be reached at jkuzmarov2@gmail.com and found on substack here.
