Mark McDougall
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Mark McDougall is a U.S. criminal defense attorney and was a member of John Kiriakou's defense team in the 2012,2013 Espionage Act prosecution under the Plato Cacheris-led firm. Kiriakou identifies him as "one of the best attorneys I've ever encountered in my life, and the one that I liked and respected the most."

The decisive argument

On the morning of the final plea-deal decision, when Cacheris, Bob Trout, and McDougall came to Kiriakou's house to argue him into accepting, McDougall delivered the line Kiriakou cites as the one that broke through:

> You know what your problem is? Your problem is you think this is about justice, and it's not about justice. It's about mitigating damage. Take the deal.

Kiriakou took the deal: thirty months, of which he served twenty-three at FCI Loretto. McDougall, described by Kiriakou elsewhere as the head of white-collar defense at Akin Gump Strauss, then the largest law firm in the world, put a number on the alternative: conviction at trial risked a sentence of 12 to 18 years, against a 30-month plea deal.

'It's about mitigating damage' (Tegan Broadwater Pt 2)

John Kiriakou says friends independently described his attorney Mark McDougall as "the meanest man in Washington", and that McDougall got in his face to tell him, "You think this is about justice, and it's not. It's about mitigating damage. Take the deal." It was McDougall who told him the case could be "a blip in your life or the defining event, make it the blip."

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Plato Cacheris
- FCI Loretto
