John Kiriakou

Kiriakou is a founding member of the organization Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). In September 2015, Kiriakou and 27 other members of VIPS' steering committee wrote a letter to President Barack Obama challenging a recently published book that claimed to rebut the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the Central Intelligence Agency's use of torture.

On February 3, 2015, Kiriakou was released from prison to serve three months of house arrest at his home in Arlington, Virginia. Following his release, Kiriakou said his case was not about leaking information but about exposing torture, continuing, "and I would do it all over again." The journalist has now expressed interest in campaigning for prison reform.

In 2014, Silenced, a documentary featuring Kiriakou by James Spione was released. The film explored the US government's response to whistleblowers who disclosed covert violations of constitutional privacy and terrorism laws. The film revealed in detail the personal toll on those three who had questioned or reported crimes within the NSA, CIA, military, and other organizations. The experiences of Kiriakou, military veteran Thomas Andrews Drake and attorney Jesselyn Radack were told.

On January 25, 2013, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison, making him the second CIA officer to be jailed for revealing classified material of CIA undercover identities, in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, after the 1985 arrest and conviction of Sharon Scranage. New York Times reporter Scott Shane referenced the Kiriakou case when he told NPR that Obama's prosecutions of journalism-related leaking were having a chilling effect on coverage of national security issues.

In January 2013, Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence adviser to Barack Obama who turned down an offer to be considered for CIA director in 2009, sent the President a letter signed by eighteen other CIA veterans urging that the sentence be commuted. Kiriakou received a prison "send off" party at an exclusive Washington, D.C., hotel hosted by political peace activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and mock prison costumes. On February 28, 2013, Kiriakou began serving his term at the low-security Federal Correctional Institution, Loretto in Loretto, Pennsylvania. In June 2013, Kiriakou wrote an open "Letter From Loretto" to Edward Snowden expressing his support and giving advice, including "the most important advice that I can offer, DO NOT, under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI".

On July 3, 2013, Kiriakou published an open letter, on Firedoglake, warning former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to beware of being tricked by FBI officials. He warned Snowden to anticipate FBI officials wearing clandestine listening devices who may attempt to betray and entrap him into making comments that, heard out of context, would seem incriminating.

On October 22, 2012, Kiriakou pleaded guilty to disclosing the identity of a fellow CIA officer. He was the first CIA officer to be convicted for passing classified information to a reporter, although the reporter did not publish the name of the operative. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison on January 25, 2013, and served his term from February 28, 2013, until February 3, 2015, at the low-security Federal correctional facility near Loretto, Pennsylvania, in general population, not in the neighboring minimum security work camp as had been reported.

Nearly five years after the Justice Department had concluded Kiriakou committed no crime by giving his 2007 ABC interview, the CIA approached the new Obama Justice Department, already engaged in its own unprecedented crackdown on government leaks, and asked them to reopen the case. On January 23, 2012, Kiriakou was charged with disclosing classified information to journalists, including the name of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the role of another CIA employee, Deuce Martinez, in classified activities. In addition, Kiriakou was alleged to have lied to the CIA to have his book published. His lawyer was Robert Trout. Lawyer and whistleblower Jesselyn Radack helped him with the case. She had previously helped NSA official Thomas Andrews Drake in his espionage case.

On April 5, 2012, Kiriakou was indicted for one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, three counts of violating the Espionage Act, and one count of making false statements for allegedly lying to the Publications Review Board of the CIA. On April 13, Kiriakou pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released on bail.

Starting September 12, 2012, the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia conducted closed Classified Information Procedures Act hearings in Kiriakou's case. On October 22, 2012, he agreed to plead guilty to one count of passing classified information to the media thereby violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act; his plea deal spared journalists from testifying in a trial. All other charges were dropped.

The CIA awarded Kiriakou with 10 Exceptional Performance Awards, a Sustained Superior performance Award, the Counterterrorism Service Medal, and the State Department's Meritorious Honor Award. Kiriakou won the 2012 Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, which is awarded to "national security whistleblowers who stood up for constitutional rights and American values, at great risk to their personal and professional lives". In November 2013, Kiriakou was awarded the "Peacemaker of the Year" by the Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County. In December 2013, he received a 2013 Giraffe Hero Commendation, awarded to people who stick their necks out for the common good. In 2016, he was awarded the Sam Adams Award. Also in 2016, he was given the prestigious PEN First Amendment Award by the PEN Center USA. He was awarded the first Blueprint International Whistleblowing Prize for "bravery and integrity in the public interest" by the Australia-based 'Blueprint for Free Speech' think tank in 2017.

In 2009, however, it was reported that Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded at least 83 times, and that little or no useful additional information may have been gained by "harsh methods" of interrogation. Kiriakou had been under the mistaken belief that Zubaydah was waterboarded only once, and even that single instance he had described as a form of torture while expressing reservations about whether the value of the information obtained was worth the damage done to the United States' reputation.

He was formerly an analyst and case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, counterterrorism and a consultant for ABC News. He was the first U.S. government official to confirm in December 2007 that waterboarding was used to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners, which he described as torture.

On December 10, 2007, Kiriakou gave an interview to ABC News in which he described his participation in the capture of Abu Zubaydah, who was accused of having been an aide to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Kiriakou said that he did not witness Zubaydah's interrogation, but had been told by CIA associates that it had taken only a single brief instance of waterboarding to extract answers:

From 2004 until 2008, Kiriakou worked as a senior manager in Big Four accounting firm Deloitte & Touche's competitive intelligence practice. From September 2008 until March 2009, Kiriakou was a terrorism consultant for ABC News. Following Senator John Kerry's (D-MA) ascension to the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2009, Kiriakou became the Committee's senior investigator, focusing on the Middle East, international terrorism, piracy, and counter-narcotics issues. In 2011, he left the Committee to become managing partner of Rhodes Global Consulting, an Arlington, Virginia-based political risk analysis firm. From April 2011 to April 2012, he resumed counter-terrorism consulting for ABC News. He speaks often at colleges and universities around the country about the CIA, terrorism, torture, and ethics in intelligence operations.

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Kiriakou was named Chief of Counterterrorist Operations in Pakistan. In that position, he led a series of military raids on al-Qaeda safehouses, capturing dozens of al-Qaeda fighters. Kiriakou led a raid on the night of March 28, 2002, in Faisalabad, Pakistan, capturing Abu Zubaydah, then thought to be al-Qaeda's third-ranking official. Following a 2002-2004 domestic assignment, Kiriakou resigned from the CIA in 2004.

Kiriakou was recruited into the CIA by a graduate school professor who had been a senior CIA official. Kiriakou spent the first eight years of his career as a Middle East analyst specializing on Iraq. He maintained a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance. He learned Arabic and, from 1994-1996, was assigned to the American Embassy in Manama, Bahrain, as an economic officer. He returned to Washington, D.C., and to work on Iraq until 1998 when he transferred to the CIA's Directorate of Operations. He became a counter-terrorism operations officer and worked in Athens, Greece, on Eurocommunist terrorism. In Greece, Kiriakou recruited foreign agents to spy for the United States, and was nearly assassinated by leftists. In 2000, Kiriakou returned to CIA Headquarters.

John Chris Kiriakou (born August 9, 1964) is a Greek American author, journalist and retired intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of Loud and Clear on Sputnik Radio.

Kiriakou was born on August 9, 1964, the son of elementary school educators in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and raised in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. His grandparents had immigrated from Greece. Kiriakou graduated from New Castle High School in 1982 and attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he earned a bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern Studies and a master's degree in Legislative Affairs.