Speaker
John Kiriakou
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Kiriakou was only 25 years old when he briefed President George H.W. Bush, the VP, and the CIA director in the Oval Office on Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The CIA paid two contract psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, $108 million of taxpayer money to devise the agency's enhanced interrogation program.
Because 9/11 suspects were tortured, all their confessions are legally inadmissible in court, meaning there is effectively no prosecutable evidence against them.
The International Spy Museum's advertising campaign cites estimates that between 10,000 and 15,000 foreign intelligence officers operate inside Washington D.C., more than any other city on Earth.
On his first day at the CIA, Kiriakou was told the FBI had identified 187 undeclared Israeli intelligence officers spread across the U.S. stealing defense secrets.
Pro-Israel groups including AIPAC spent over $32–35 million to defeat Republican Representative Thomas Massie in his House primary, the most expensive House primary on record.
At its peak, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility held approximately 770 detainees; 34 remain as of the time of the conversation.
The practice of CIA officers posing as university professors to recruit students — how Kiriakou was recruited — was made illegal by Congress in 1993 under the EEOC.
Three Saudi princes whose cell phone numbers were found in Abu Zubaydah's diary all died suspicious deaths — hospital surgery, a one-car accident, and thirst while camping — before the CIA could interrogate them.
According to Ed Snowden and Julian Assange, the NSA's Utah data compound has enough memory storage for every American's phone calls, emails, and texts for the next 500 years.
George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic nominee, lost 49 out of 50 states in the general election, a catastrophic defeat that led the DNC to create the superdelegate system.
The Democratic superdelegate system creates roughly 1,500 automatic convention delegates from officeholders, allowing party insiders to override the popular vote in primaries.
John Kiriakou served 23 months in federal prison after being charged with revealing the CIA's torture program to ABC News and the New York Times.
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2016 made it legal for the first time in U.S. history for the American government to propagandize its own citizens.
Abu Zubaydah's diary contained the cell phone numbers of three Saudi princes. The CIA demanded access. Within days, one died on the operating table during bariatric surgery, another died in a one-car accident on a Saudi highway, and the third died of thirst while camping in the desert. Kiriakou says Saudi Arabia killed them.
On August 2, 1990, Kiriakou — an analyst barely 8 months on the job — was told not to take his jacket off because they were going to the White House. He ended up briefing President Bush, the VP, and the CIA director on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He was 25 years old.
On July 6, 2001 — two months before 9/11 — CIA Counterterrorism Director Cofer Black interrupted a routine liaison briefing and told a room of foreign intelligence officers that a catastrophic attack was imminent. He cited intercepts of al-Qaeda camp commanders crying and saying goodbye to students. Nobody offered a single lead.
The CIA had zero trained interrogators when they started catching al-Qaeda suspects after 9/11. They handed the job to two contract psychologists — James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen — who invented waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, the naked cold cell, and rectal feeding with hummus. Taxpayers paid them $108 million. Neither has ever been charged with a crime.
The 9/11 plotters confessed everything under torture. Every single confession is inadmissible in court. There is now no usable evidence against them. The CIA's decision to torture effectively guaranteed the men responsible for killing 2,976 people would never face trial.
Kiriakou believes Israel had sources inside al-Qaeda and advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks but deliberately withheld that intelligence. The reasoning: they knew the U.S. would respond by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, killing millions of Muslims — exactly what Israel wanted. He calls the 'Dancing Israelis' incident still unresolved and is 'still mad about it.'
Kiriakou earned $5,000–$6,000 writing op-eds for the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and was required by law to register as a foreign agent. AIPAC spends tens of millions of dollars influencing U.S. elections on behalf of Israel and has never had to register. Kiriakou calls this a glaring and inexplicable double standard.
In Pakistan after 9/11, Kiriakou spotted a motorcyclist in a red helmet shadowing him across three different sightings — the CIA's definition of confirmed surveillance. Armed with a plan to kill the follower that afternoon, he paused and asked his Pakistani intelligence counterpart directly if they were surveilling him. The answer saved a man's life.
At his federal minimum-security prison, Kiriakou found Black inmates split between Crips and Bloods, Hispanic inmates in a massive coalition called Pisces (with sub-factions including MS-13 and the Mexican Mafia), and Italian organized crime figures — the smallest group — commanding the highest respect from everyone. He eventually left the Aryan Brotherhood's lunch table to sit with the Bonanno family.
It was always illegal for the U.S. government to propagandize its own citizens. That changed with the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, which also gave the government power to issue national security letters bypassing judicial oversight on data collection. Kiriakou says most Americans have no idea either provision exists.
After George McGovern won the 1972 Democratic nomination through popular support and then lost 49 states, the DNC created the superdelegate system — roughly 1,500 automatic delegates drawn from party officeholders. The result: states where Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 gave her every delegate anyway.
Waterboarding got all the headlines, but Kiriakou argues the cold cell — stripping prisoners naked, chaining them to a ceiling bolt in freezing temperatures — and rectal feeding were worse. The latter involved pumping hummus through tubes into detainees specifically to humiliate them by insulting their religious and cultural identity. All of it was approved by the U.S. government.
The International Spy Museum's bus advertisements state there are between 10,000 and 15,000 foreign intelligence officers inside Washington D.C. — more than anywhere else on the planet. Kiriakou confirms the figure is credible, adding that the CIA was told on day one: don't eat at restaurants in McLean, Virginia because Russian and Israeli agents are there to listen.
Kiriakou spotted a target who walked his dog every morning at 6:30 a.m. He borrowed a colleague's dog for a week, 'accidentally' met the man, bonded over the dogs, and by day three had him agreeing to spy for the CIA for $5,000 a month. He calls it the best recruitment of his career.
Kiriakou's CIA recruitment started with a graduate school paper about his racist boss. His professor — actually a CIA officer undercover — graded the psychological profile and invited Kiriakou to join the agency. That practice is now illegal under 1993 EEOC legislation.
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- History 20%
- True Crime 13%
- Society & Culture 7%
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