CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou Talks Assange, Israel & Toll of Truth-Telling
The former CIA analyst who exposed its torture program shares his insights with us about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's plea deal, Palestinian detainees, and more.
“I'll answer that part first, that’s the easy one,” explains John Kiriakou, the former CIA intelligence officer who served 30 months in federal prison for exposing the agency’s torture program to the world, when asked whether he’d do it all again despite the personal and professional fallout from his disclosure.
“The answer’s yes. One hundred percent yes, one thousand percent yes, I’d do it today—today. I've realized that, that this, this sort of is my purpose in life. And somebody had to say something. I'm glad that it was me. The more difficult answer is, it's not just what I experienced as a whistleblower, it's what any whistleblower experiences, especially a national security whistleblower.”
Those are just some of the many profound insights he shared with us during a recent, wide-ranging conversation encompassing everything from the significance of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s recent plea deal with U.S. authorities to the lack of affirmative defense under the WWI-era Espionage Act to his thoughts on Israel’s indefinite detention and alleged torture of Palestinians, the personal toll of truth-telling, ongoing ‘War on Terror,’ and much more.
John’s no stranger to News Beat. He’s joined us on two previous episodes—one about the U.S. government’s war on the press and another concerning former CIA Director Gina Haspel’s black site operations and subsequent evidence destruction. We actually go back much further—about a decade so, when we wrote about him for an article in the alt-weekly we worked at together.
He’s the sole CIA agent to go to jail in connection with the U.S. torture program, despite the fact that he never tortured anyone. John currently writes about national security, intelligence, foreign affairs, politics, justice reform, and more on his ‘Loud & Clear with John Kiriakou’ Substack, and co-hosts the daily radio show and podcast ‘Political Misfits.’
We spoke to him this time around from his home in Virginia, and he didn’t hold back. He named names regarding all those who were never held accountable for their roles in the illegal and internationally condemned CIA torture program—which by the way, was sanctioned at the highest echelons of the U.S. government. He talked about his apprehension of al Qaeda terror suspect Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan—one of several indefinitely detained without charges to this very day at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. And he spoke candidly about the personal and professional fallout of his earth-shattering disclosures in the public interest.
In that vein, John detailed the gross hypocrisy and abject failure of the U.S. Whistleblower Act, which “specifically exempts national security whistleblowers from its protections.”
“And so if you blow the whistle on waste, fraud, abuse, illegality, or threats to the public health or public safety—which is the legal definition of whistleblowing—and you work for the CIA, the FBI, NSA, DOD, the White House, or even the Department of Homeland Security, you're probably going to go to prison,” he says. “And not just prison, you're probably going to be indicted under the Espionage Act.”
“Beyond that, you're going to be shocked at how many friends, in some cases lifelong friends, will walk away from you and never speak to you again. You're gonna be shocked that the marriage that you thought was so rock solid, turns out to not be so rock solid, not when, you know, your wife is a senior CIA officer, and is concerned about her own career. You're going to be shocked at how quickly bankruptcy is upon you, which is the government's plan.”
And remember: Despite it all, he’d do exactly the same thing again in a heartbeat.
Here’s a video of our interview:
Additional Resources
Listen to ‘Enemy of the American People: The U.S. Government’s War on Journalism & Press Freedom,’ featuring John Kiriakou, Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Trevor Timm, Reporters Without Borders’ Margaux Ewen, whistleblower and independent journalist Barrett Brown, and an insane lyrical performance by our artist in residence, hip-hop superstar Silent Knight.
Check out our other episode featuring John: ‘Gina Haspel Covered Up Torture. Now She Might Run The CIA.’
Read Rashed’s story from wayyy back featuring him, too: ‘The Prosecution of the CIA Whistleblower Who Revealed Waterboarding to the World’
Definitely check out John’s Substack ‘Loud & Clear with John Kiriakou,’ listen to his daily radio show and podcast ‘Political Misfits,’ and follow him on X.
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Audio Editor/Sound Designer/Producer/Host: Manny Faces
Editor-In-Chief/Producer: Christopher Twarowski
Managing Editor/Producer: Rashed Mian
Episode Art: Jon Chim