"Only Fox came to my defence"
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Discussing the 2019 Ukraine complainant, John Kiriakou was invited to note the contrast with his own treatment: that he had made allegations which turned out to be true and had gone to prison for making them.

The correction he volunteers

When his interviewer began listing the outlets that had turned on him, Kiriakou interrupted with a distinction of his own. "Actually, only Fox came to my defence. That's something you and I never talked about."

The labels

"MSNBC never called me a whistleblower. They called me 'CIA leaker.'" CNN, he says, took about a year before deciding to use the word.

The conclusion

"It's tough being a whistleblower. Political lines are drawn, and that's really where these things usually turn."

That is the point he then applies in reverse to the Ukraine case: "we are seeing the Democrats do the same thing right now with this CIA officer. They are telling us, imposing upon us their notion that this person is a whistleblower, and he simply is not."

Kiriakou's argument is symmetrical rather than partisan: the label follows from whose case it helps. He accepts that Fox defended him while MSNBC would not, and treats that as an illustration of the same mechanism, not as proof that one network is more honest than another.

The rest of the account

In the same interview he restates the shape of his own prosecution in compressed form: 23 months in prison; Robert Mueller set it up; John Brennan petitioned Attorney General Holder to charge him with five felonies including espionage, all of which were dismissed. And, he adds, "ironically it was Peter Strzok who put the cuffs on me in 2012."

He also does not expect the Ukraine complainant to face anything comparable. Asked whether that person would serve nearly two years in prison, his answer was: "not a chance."

See also

- John Kiriakou
- The order of the whistleblower process
- The Ukraine call whistleblower
- John Brennan
- CIA media revolving door
