Are CIA-Adjacent Programs Grooming America’s Leaders?

By Philip C. Johnson – July 16, 2025

A Spark from American Thinker
Last week, a friend sent me an American Thinker article that’s been stuck in my head ever since. Titled “Zohran Mamdani Has All the Earmarks of Being Another Barack Obama,” written by Norman Krieg on July 4, 2025, it sparked questions about something most folks overlook: CIA-adjacent programs. What are they, who’s involved, and are they quietly reshaping America in ways we don’t see?

The Roots of CIA-Adjacent Programs
CIA-adjacent programs aren’t direct CIA operations but initiatives linked to U.S. government or intelligence interests, often through groups like USAID or the Ford Foundation. Born during the Cold War, they aimed to build global influence. The Kennedy-era “Tom Mboya Airlift” (also known as the “Kennedy Airlift”) provided scholarships to East African students to U.S. universities, grooming pro-Western elites. Similarly, Operation Paperclip (1945) recruited over 1,600 German scientists—many former Nazis—for U.S. programs, while Operation Mockingbird infiltrated media, placing journalists on CIA payrolls to shape narratives. The catch? These efforts all had intelligence ties, raising questions about foreign influence and ethics. Today, figures like Barack Obama and Zohran Mamdani echo these programs’ lingering reach. 

Modern Echoes: Obama and Mamdani
Who’s involved? Krieg points to Barack Obama and Zohran Mamdani. Obama’s father, Annan Hussein Obama, arrived via the 1959 airlift, a program with documented CIA connections. Mamdani’s father came from Uganda in 1963 under a similar scholarship. Both men’s mothers worked with USAID and similar outfits, often flagged as CIA-adjacent for pushing U.S. agendas abroad. These individuals often end up in high-impact roles—politics, academia, activism—steering narratives here or overseas.

Mamdani’s Meteoric Rise
Mamdani’s rise as New York City’s leading mayoral candidate feels eerily like Obama’s “out of nowhere” ascent to the presidency. A 33-year-old Shiite Muslim and self-described democratic socialist, Mamdani stunned the Democratic establishment by trouncing Andrew Cuomo in the June 2025 primary. How does a relatively unknown state assemblyman, with a platform some call communist—free buses, rent freezes, city-run grocery stores—rocket to the top in America’s biggest city? His viral social media, backed by 50,000 volunteers and small donors, fueled a grassroots wave, but the speed and scale feel less than organic. Like Obama’s rapid climb, it raises questions: is this raw talent, or is something bigger at play?

A Shadowy Intelligence Network
The network behind these programs is shadowy but real, and the conspiracy angle is tough to dismiss. Some argue CIA-adjacent initiatives, like those tied to Obama and Mamdani, are covert ways to plant assets into global power structures, with “classic earmarks” of Deep State grooming: exotic backgrounds, rapid rises, polished personas. Are they handpicked to push globalist policies, sometimes at America’s expense? The CIA’s history shows a knack for manipulating domestic and foreign spheres, raising concerns about whether foreign nationals, once trained, become conduits for U.S. or rival nations’ agendas. Let’s take a deeper look at some of the CIA’s shenanigans:

Operation Paperclip
Launched in 1945, Operation Paperclip brought over 1,600 German scientists, many former Nazis, to work on U.S. military and space programs, including NASA’s moon missions. By whitewashing their pasts, the U.S. prioritized technological gain over ethics, planting foreign expertise—tainted by war crimes—into America’s core.

Operation Mockingbird
From the late 1940s, Operation Mockingbird saw the CIA infiltrate U.S. media, with over 400 journalists on payroll by the 1970s, per the Church Committee. Outlets like The New York Times and CBS were allegedly co-opted to push pro-U.S. narratives, (whatever those might be at the time) undermining press integrity and shaping public opinion covertly.

1953 Iran Coup
In 1953, the CIA orchestrated a coup to overthrow Iran’s elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, installing the Shah to secure U.S. oil interests. Codenamed Operation Ajax, it showed the CIA’s willingness to manipulate foreign governments, often with blowback like the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Ukraine’s 2014 Unrest
In 2014, the CIA supported pro-Western groups during Ukraine’s Maidan uprising, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych for a Western-aligned leader. I was in Kyiv covering the protests, and locals told me directly the CIA was fomenting the revolution, a claim later backed by declassified cables revealing U.S. funding for NGOs. This echoes CIA-adjacent tactics, raising questions about meddling in sovereign nations for geopolitical gain.

Epstein’s Tangled Web
Then there’s Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex trafficker whose shadow still looms in D.C. and media circles. I won’t wade into the current buzz around the Trump administration’s “Epstein files” promises, but consider this: his 2023-revealed calendar, per The Wall Street Journal, included meetings with CIA Director William Burns and Obama-era counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. Former NSA counterspy John Schindler ties Epstein to an Israeli operation called MEGA, suggesting he was a nugget in a broader intelligence web. While not directly linked to these scholarship programs, Epstein’s elite connections point to overlapping networks where power and espionage collide.

Why We Should Care
Most Americans haven’t thought about this, but they should. Paperclip’s ethical breaches, Mockingbird’s media manipulation, and CIA coups echo today’s concerns about CIA-adjacent programs. Are we letting foreign influences into our system, against our better judgment? The evidence suggests a web where intelligence, philanthropy, and politics intertwine—often to our detriment. It’s time to ask who’s really calling the shots.