Title: More Than Rich: S3E33 - John Kiriakou Exposes The Cost o
Show: JoeCat ®
Date: 2024-10-06
URL: https://youtu.be/3NCqVjUN4zw
Duration: 1:17:00

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[00:00] more the Rich Podcast today we have a guest who embodies courage integrity and a Relentless Pursuit Of Truth joining us is John kiraku a former CIA officer who became widely known as a whistleblower after exposing the cia's use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique his actions led to significant personal and professional consequences but they also sparked an important conversation about ethics transparency and the human rights in intelligence work John has since become an outspoken

[00:32] advocate for justice author and public speaker we're honored to have him share his journey with us today and delve into the experiences that have shaped his views on power ethics and the future of intelligence John welcome to the show thanks very much for having me appreciate it um John your upbringing in early influences many people are shaped by the values instilled in them during their upbringing how did your childhood and family environment influence your views on Authority and Justice were there any moments in early life that set you on a path to the

[01:04] CIA that's that's a good question actually it's not a question I normally get um yeah my my childhood my upbringing probably um had more of an influence on my personal philosophy on things like human rights and civil rights and civil liberties than anything else did there were there were a handful of people who were um instrumental really in in helping me to build my character my father of course like everybody's father pretty much my grandfather with whom I was very very

[01:36] close and I'll get into that in a second but two other people a little bit later in life um as a teenager um Pete Seager the the folk singer and I'm very proud to say that that Pete became a friend of mine not a close friend but close enough that he that he had a major impact on my life and uh and Daniel ellberg who gave us the Pentagon papers Way Back in 1970 Dan became a a mentor and an ethical guide when I needed one the most my

[02:09] grandfather I I said a second ago my grandfather and I were very close my grandfather was uh was an immigrant all all four of my grandparents uh immigrated from Greece from the island of rhs but I was closest with my dad's father and um and he was a he was a working man he was uh he worked in the steel mill for for 40 years and then um and then after retirement uh went to work in his sister-in-law's butcher shop as a butcher but even though he was a simple man who you know had trouble reading and

[02:41] writing didn't speak very much English handful of words he had an incredible life story you know this is a guy that came here alone at the age of 20 uh back then the the ship took almost a month to make its way here came with nothing and um and then he would you know we would talk about when you're a little kid you don't know what's important so I I would ask him if you know when he was when he first arrived did they have

[03:11] Model T Fords did he ever see a Model T Ford I remember asking him that question and he would say yeah yeah they had Model T fors I remember they used to drive up and down the street right and then he'd say but you know what else I did I went to a sacko and venetti rally and I almost lost my job well that meant nothing to a six-year-old but it meant an incredible amount to a 16-year-old once I figured out who sacko and benetti were yeah once I figured out that my grandfather was one of the

[03:42] founders of the American helenic educational and Progressive Association a hea which was initially set up as a militia to protect Jews and black people who were being lynched in the South I still have his Fez that he used to wear at the at the secret meetings yeah so you know little things that I that I learned as life went on where my grandfather was always on the right side of history and this guy never had two nickels to rub together when when he

[04:14] died and we sold his house we got 1,800 bucks for his house 1,800 bucks it's in a slum but that was never important to him what was important was was ethics and and doing the right thing and because he had no education he made sure by God his children had an education so in what way would you say that they like foreshadowed your eventual disillusionment with everything there were a couple of times I'll tell you a story I never told

[04:44] anybody I haven't even thought about this in years my dad had a first cousin Angelo Angelo at snas and Angela was a member of the Greek Merchant Marine and in 19 I'm going to say this was like 1967 or 68 uh they were in Port in Norfolk Virginia and the captain said Angelo I want you to March guard duty tonight because I don't trust any of these other guys I think they're going to jump ship

[05:15] and as soon as the sun went down Angelo went right over the side of the ship right and he swam to Shore and somehow he made his way to Richmond Virginia and in Richmond he found a Greek coffee shop there there were many many Greek coffee shops at the time all up and down the east coast and he said he just jumped ship which was actually you know not uncommon and he had an uncle in feral Pennsylvania everybody pulled their money and they got him enough for whatever it was a bus ticket or train

[05:45] ticket I don't know to Ferell Pennsylvania Okay the reason I tell you that story is I remember like I say I was three or four I remember immigration coming to my grandfather's house and banging on on the door and Angelo hiding in the broom closet in the kitchen and my grandfather with his third grade education and his lack of English knew enough to say warrant you know warrant you know come

[06:16] in yeah and he saved Angelo and you know what Angelo ended up doing he ended up waiting things out until there was an amnesty he got his American citizenship and then he ran the barber shop in the Pentagon for 25 years so you know when when the cops are banging on the door and your grandfather tells him to you know get the [ __ ] out of here that makes an impact how's that for a metaphor for you know going against the people who can help you the most

[06:46] eventually as well right isn't that the truth wow dude that is eye opening um he was a giant in my life he really was and know it's funny too I have his driver's license and in my memory my grandfather was you know 66 250 of just knotted muscle and he did have knotted muscle from 40 years as a slab cutter at uh at us steel but um but he was 5 foot eight it says on his driver's license and it's

[07:18] like what 5 foot eight you are you like I don't remember him like that I definitely do not remember him 5 foot eight that is funny um coming on to like human nature and patterns you had an intriguing vantage point on human nature so having been both an intelligence officer and a whistleblower what patterns have you observed in how people Empower rationalize unethical behavior and how do you see these patterns and are they inherent to human nature are they a product of the environments ah well that's also a good

[07:51] question you know um forgive me if my answer is a little bit lengthy go crazy go crazy when I was first hired at the CIA I was in the directorate of intelligence which is the analytic arm of the CIA and I was specifically assigned to uh to an office called the office of leadership analysis it was a Psychology office where we did longdistance uh psychological evaluations of foreign leaders right that office no longer exists but it was a very very fun job and it was um it was

[08:25] a contemporary Office of the what was then called the political Psych ology division made up of psychiatrists psychologists a couple of anthropologists a sociologists or two so I worked very very closely with those people and they taught me a lot one of the things that they taught me is that the CIA actively seeks to hire people who have sociopathic tendencies they don't actively seek to hire sociopaths because sociopaths have no

[08:56] conscience and people with no conscience are impossible to control and they also blow right through a polygraph because they're unable to feel guilt their brains won't won't allow them to feel guilt so they could just ass soon cut your throat from ear to ear and then you know go have lunch and and finish out their work day you don't want people like that you want people who have sociopathic tendencies so I asked well what does that mean and the shrink I was talking to said well you have sociopathic

[09:27] tendencies and I said I'm offended by that offended that you would say something like that and he said no think about it people with sociopathic tendencies um have consciences uh they feel guilt or remorse but they are willing to break the law or to work in moral ethical and even legal gray areas if they believe it's in the service of good and you know after he told me that I remembered an exercise that they gave

[09:59] us in the hiring process so I was with a group of other people who had applied for these jobs whether they were in intelligence or operations and the instructor said let's say that you're posted overseas in some foreign country and you get a cable from headquarters telling you that that headquarters really really needs information on you know the next Indonesian economic figure let's

[10:31] say so you begin to cultivate the Indonesian second secretary for economic Affairs and you become friends you take them to lunch your wives become friends you go to dinner together headquarters gives you I mean virtually an unlimited budget so you go on vacation together you buy him gifts but you come to the determination that he is not recruitable but headquarters needs those numbers so what do you do and this woman

[11:03] raised her hand and she said well maybe maybe you can work it through the wife maybe you know the wife can influence him and then some guy raises his hand and says well you just double down and you work on him for another six months or another 12 months and I'm looking around like looking at these people and then I I put my hand up and the instructor says yeah and I said you break into the embassy and you steal it he said that's exactly what you do okay okay well I came to learn a normal PE a normal person won't break into a foreign

[11:34] Embassy and steal a document I would but it's because I have sociopathic tendencies so is the thought itself the idea and is that giveaway I mean it doesn't imply that you would do it is what I'm trying to get at but just having the thought in itself was a giveaway yeah having the thought is a giveaway yeah wow all right mind blowing right now yes so I mean you another thing that I learned and this is not specific to

[12:04] the CIA it's it's you know applicable to the Fortune 500 to elected office you have to be a sociopath and probably a narcissist inter if you want to make it to the very top because just like in the corporate world you make it to the top by climbing on the backs of the people around you you have to be perfectly willing to stab somebody right in the back and if you have to spin him around and stab him in the front to get ahead

[12:36] and that's that's never been me we're talking we're talking about I want your position and I'll do anything to get it or you're going for a a promotion and the guy next to you's going for a promotion and so you know you're wondering yeah you're wondering well what did he um I wonder what he said on his application so you go in on Sunday you hack into his computer you make a copy of his application and you be sure that you prepare to defeat every point that he made on that application mhm is this something personally witnessed oh yeah oh wow most

[13:09] definitely interesting that's a lot that's really good Insight but you can trust no one this kind of ties into the next question is there a point where the pursuit of power or national security overrides basic human ethics like how did witnessing or participating in these moments affect your view on Humanity yeah have they evolved oh yeah I used to think just blindly we're the good guys right we're the good guys and so if this is what the White House wants us to do we should do

[13:40] it if this is what the CIA director wants us to do we should do it and I came to realize that we're not we're not the good guys I me sometimes we are sure um and sometimes we are um murderers and torturers you know there's a wonderful quote by gal Abdul nasar who was the uh the first post monarchical uh president of Egypt this is a wonderful quote he said the thing about you Americans is that

[14:10] you never make clear-cut stupid decisions you only make very complicated stupid decisions which makes us wonder if there is something to them which we are missing and man I saw that with my own two eyes a thousand times over the course of my care career so never never did I ever hear somebody in a position of authority ask what's the what's the moral thing to do what's the

[14:42] ethical thing to do or even what's the legal thing to do even if it's illegal you just get a presidential waiver and you can go do whatever you want so are they operating as a for-profit company essentially I mean that's really what it comes down to isn't it that's hilarious uh uh you faced incredible pressure and made decisions that most people never will so how his psychological impact of your work and your decisions to become a whistleblower changed you as a person like what has it taught you about your limits

[15:13] resilience well I was just telling a friend of mine last night that um when I was growing up I was the kid who probably would have backed down in the face of the bully right until I was bullied and one of the greatest compliments any of my CIA colleagues ever gave me was one of them said you

[15:43] know what I like about you you're not afraid of anybody and I said you know I've never really thought about that but no I'm not I'm not afraid of anybody and that's why I volunteered to go to Afghanistan I volunteered to go Pak to Pakistan and when I saw you know waste BR abuse and illegality at the CIA I went to the media and blew the whistle um yeah I mean somebody's got to stand up somebody's got to say this is wrong

[16:14] somebody's got to to remind the powers that be in Washington that we're supposed to be a nation of laws I never set out to be that person I never intended or even wanted the price has been incredibly High but somebody had to do it somebody had to say something so come and fo how did that change you though and psychologically well um in a number of ways I will admit to you that I am probably angrier than I

[16:47] ever was in earlier years um I had the the personal Fallout was such that I trust literally nobody literally nobody um yeah where I got burned was the CIA trains you to not trust anybody but then you know there's that one person in your life that one person

[17:17] you always know well if if it hits the fan at least I've got this one person and then it turns out no you don't no you're on your own so those were the two biggest changes in my life um I will say too that I've adopted as personal issues issues that had never occurred to me 20 years ago right I never thought about sentencing reform prison reform or

[17:51] shutting down Guantanamo or you know human rights or whatever they just never really entered my mind and now they're they're all I think about and have been for the last you know decade and a half most positive way you would say you're channeling that anger though oh I I'm proud to say that that I'm told that I'm somewhat influential I write a lot I have a radio show every

[18:21] day I have a TV show every week people shout out to the Misfits by the way yeah thank you and um it's mostly it's mostly my writing that um that has an impact because you know once you write something it's out there and it's out there permanently and I write a lot about corruption in the Federal Bureau of Prisons I write a lot about human rights in prisons I mean everything from Medical Care to uh to animal grade

[18:53] food uh you know to overcrowding and um and physical plant we should be ashamed of ourselves we should be ashamed of the way we treat human beings in the prison system at every level I mean you know the federal prisons the state prisons and the local uh jails uh we should be ashamed and and we're not we're not kind of off topic here a little bit but I used to watch RT 2016 when I discovered uh Tom Hartman I

[19:25] don't know I don't know if he was NE was he on RT yeah he well well They Carried his show but I think it was independently produced got you yeah so that was just kind of my first insight into that and it kind of blew my mind I was like wait Russian sponsored like there are there any other countries that sponsor television in the USA and yes on top of that like just what what is your perspective on that like I I really admired the conversation you had with boo Deonte like I like like I I had

[19:55] never considered the Viewpoint of yo you're still going against and you're helping the you know that that narrative because I don't see it like that I don't either and I'll tell you something funny about uh let me think uh five years ago I did a show on um on Sputnik called loud and clear and it was with a a co-host Brian Becker who's an awesome guy and every Thursday we would dedicate 30 minutes to something that we called criminal Injustice it was a it was a

[20:26] weekly segment and we would always have independent journalist Kevin gastala and uh Paul Wright who's the founder of the human rights defense center it's the and he's the publisher of prison legal news magazine so he's the big prison uh prisoner rights guy so every every week we would talk about you know the things that I just said prison reform sentencing reform conditions Medical Care food for-profit prisons well one one Thursday The

[20:58] Washington Post was listening to the show and they wrote an article a couple of days later excuse me saying that by talking about these issues we were weakening our democracy that's what they accus me I was weakening our democracy and I said later no the Crooked judge who took bribes to send juveniles to a for-profit prison so he could line his pockets build a a beach

[21:30] house he's weakening our democracy or when a prisoner is having a mental breakdown and then to punish him for ruining their evening four guards take him into the shower put the water on hot and scald him to the point that all of his skin falls off and he dies four hours later that is weakening our democracy so I don't want to hear it from The Washington Post any final thoughts on RT though sure um

[22:04] I I had been on RT many many times when they were finally shut down and I'll say the same thing about RT that I um have said about Sputnik nobody has ever asked me to say something or to not say something um to fit into some sort of ideology ever in fact when Sputnik first approached me about giving giv me a show um I said no and then six or eight months later they came back and they offered a show again

[22:35] and I said well kind of you know always have wanted to get into radio but if I were to take a show with you guys I would I would want to have the freedom to say anything I want about anyone I want and to criticize anyone I want including Vladimir Putin and the manager said done and I said yeah yeah I said put that in writing in the contract and he said okay and he

[23:07] did and listen I I don't know very much about Russia I'm a career Middle East guy so it's not really my my area of expertise but on the day that that the Russians invaded Ukraine I opened my show by saying I unreservedly condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine I understand why they did it but I'm opposed to it and I urge them to withdraw immediately because if we're going to be peace activists or supporters of Peace then we need to be supporters of Peace whether

[23:39] it's to criticize the Russians or the Americans or the Israelis or anybody else quite the conundrum though I can see how that makes you look weird position to put you in right it is oh man it is like by the way I don't know what this is all about don't don't Loop me into this um do you ever find yourself reflecting on whether your time in the CIA fundamentally changed who you are perhaps in ways you didn't realize until after you left if so are these changes once you've come to accept like do they

[24:09] remain points of internal conflict well the honest answer is I'm not sure um when I was in prison I wrote a book called doing time like a spy how the CIA taught me to survive and thrive in prison and when I sat down to start writing it I wrote it as a joke right and I open it by taking these 20 life lessons that the CIA taught me and I illustrate how I I adapted those life lessons to to prison Life by the time I

[24:43] got done with the book it was actually quite a serious book there there are light parts of it but it was quite a serious book and I think in answer to your question that um that the CIA did not not change me it heightened it it it honed those aspects of my personality that became more important later like for example you know you have

[25:15] to have a healthy uh distrust of authority I always have I don't like cops I've never liked cops and I never had any problem with cops I just don't like them you know we always used to say when we were kids oh you give a guy a stick in a badge and you've created a monster well you know what that's true in many cases um and so and so I I ended up sharpening that position in my

[25:45] mind to the point where you know when I told people listen I'm thinking to go in public on this torture thing this is just wrong wrong wrong and they're like don't do it don't do it don't do it just keep your mouth shut just let it go somebody else will do it well I waited for what six five years nobody else did it so I did it so I think no it didn't really change me so much as it helped helped me to mature in my

[26:16] worldview in in a way that was opposite of what the CIA probably expected it's funny because I relate to you in the concept of Urban Development where the push back and then lot of waiting and things like that so just in that aspect yeah definitely um given the nature of your work how do you feel that your time in the CIA required you to suppress or alter parts of your identity and now yeah that you've distanced yourself from the agency do you find that those aspects your personality have resurfaced

[26:47] or are there parts that you are you know forever changed or lost you know I remember on the day that I resigned my wife said well now you never have to hide your politics again wow yeah wow that's a good point yeah it was the first thing she said as soon as I I signed the paperwork right to take a job in the private sector that was the first thing that she said that's interesting it makes me wonder about celebrities yeah definitely I remember

[27:19] you know the CIA is supposed to be completely a political and for a long time it was I literally had no idea the political leanings of the people that I worked with um in fact I remember there are two things that stick in my mind from the 1990s one was on Election Day 1992 um every every branch in the CIA has a morning meeting so you discuss whatever happened overnight you talk about what you're writing today what you're going to write tomorrow that kind of thing and

[27:51] my boss said listen I know we're not supposed to do this but I'm really curious as to who everybody voted for this morning and that's that's a no no you can't you're not supposed to even you know speak those words out loud but people said and I remember being shocked that it was three for Bush three for Clinton and two for perau and I remember thinking I can't believe I'm not the only Lefty in this Branch like I couldn't believe it and

[28:24] then in 1996 there was was a woman in my office who was reprimanded because she had a dole for president bumper sticker in uh hanging in her cubical they reprimanded her no politics um and so you know not even go a go vote sticker nothing nothing and so once I got out you know I could March in demonstrations which I did all the time

[28:55] and I still do all the time I could go to meetings I you know do whatever I wanted that is funny though where you're like I couldn't wait to March all this time I've been serving in fact I remember I remember going to a Veterans for peace March and the the chapter president he was a retired lieutenant colonel and he says how come I've never heard of you and I said I was in the CIA for 15 years he's like oh enough said yeah that's hilarious we're

[29:27] gonna move on to little controversial a little contentious topics but this is just to challenge perspectives here encourage deeper reflection some might argue that your actions while morally driven endangered National Security how do you respond to the contention that the moral High Ground you took may have been compromised the safety with developed citizens does this critique even ever weigh on you or do you see it as a necessary risk for the greater good oh yeah it it doesn't weigh on me for one instant and I'll tell you why studies were actually done I'll give you two answers study were actually done um

[30:00] about this that concluded that it was the torture program that actually made it more dangerous for Americans in that it was the torture program that uh that had leaked out well before I ever said anything about waterboarding that served as a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups yeah um back in I I blew the whistle in December of 2007 in ' 05 um Human Rights Watch published a report

[30:31] saying the CIA is torturing its prisoners in ' 06 um Amnesty International said the same thing and in ' 07 the international Committee of the Red Cross issued their report and then also in oh whatever it was six or seven there was a leak to the New York Times about the secret prison system so no the revelations didn't endanger American lives or endanger National sec the programs endangered American lives

[31:01] and National Security you know Tom Drake the NSA whistleblower dear friend of mine uh Tom was the one who blew the whistle on warrantless wiretapping of American citizens and um when he was charged with nine felonies including um including seven counts of Espionage and he never went public he went to the Congressional oversight committees um he was told that he had the blood of American soldiers on his hands and he was on the stand and he

[31:33] said name one name one American Soldier whose blood is on my hands name one I defy you and the judge uh ended up throwing out all the charges yes this is something that the justice department does all the time another another word that they love is grave this was a grave crime no it wasn't you know they said this about Roger what's his name Roger uh Stone he committed a grave crime now

[32:03] lying to the FBI is a crime it's not a grave crime you know blowing up the World Trade Center is a grave crime or the mura building in Oklahoma City that's a grave crime storming the capitals a grave storming the capital it's a grave crime you're making a coup telling the FBI a lie no sorry that's not a grave crime that is a good point um How Deeply entrenched do you anticipate the entertainment industry is tied into prisons into prisons or into the CIA well you can say both honestly because

[32:35] is there an incentive to keep the the prisons full in that aspect propagate horrible you know music yeah um well the prison system is very much a for profit Enterprise and so um how do you make a profit with a prison you do it by spending as little as you can on food and on medical care right you cut it to the Bone and then you cut you start shaving the bone on top of it I'll tell you something that I've that I've said

[33:06] uh on several uh podcasts my my very first full day in prison was a Thursday I'm I'm sorry I arrived on Thursday my very first day was a Friday and I saw on the menu that they post in the housing units Friday is fish day and I said to this Italian uh from across the hall ah fish day H all right I like fish and he's like oh no no no don't eat this fish we call it sewer trout and I said yeah he said yeah you don't want to eat this fish it it'll make you sick so

[33:38] we go down to the cafeteria and they had these boxes stacked up like six boxes and they were all they all said the same thing it said Alaskan cod Product of China feed use only not for human consumption and they're just slopping it on each tray so I never touched it but that's one of the ways that they save money another way that they save money is they just won't give you any

[34:09] medication I can't tell you in the in the 23 short months that I was in prison I can't tell you how many people I saw die die because they were untreated there was one Italian I was very close to the Italians when I was there I mean Italians like named banano and Gambino and lucasi so you ate well if I'm not mistaken I ate very very well I remember this very well so one of them I worked in the chapel and one of them lived right across all from the chapel and I

[34:40] saw him one day and he was in just excruciating pain and I said hey man what's wrong he said I don't know man my my back my back is killing me and I said you should go to the medical unit he said I did they only gave me Tylenol I said Ah that's what they always do they give Everybody Tylenol so a couple couple of weeks pass and I saw him he's walking with a cane and I said is your back still bothering you that much he's like man I can't even get out of bed I I don't know what I would do without this cane and I thought wow that's that's

[35:12] rough another couple of weeks past and I see him and he's in a wheelchair so I said I'm going to talk to the chaplain he said they won't they won't help me at all in medical I went to talk to chaplain I said chaplain there's a serious problem over here he's an old man his pain is so uh pain it's so terrible that it's debilitating and they won't help him in uh in medical so the chaplain because he was the only decent guy in the whole the whole place he went to the warden and said you've gota you gotta take this guy

[35:43] for an exam turned out he had stage four spinal cancer he was a dead man walking and because every time he went to Medical they would only give him Tylenol the cancer had just spread like wildfire all through his body so the warden went to see him in his cell one night and said that if he signed a release promising that he wouldn't sue the Bureau of Prisons they would give him compassionate release and let him die at home and he said no I'm already

[36:16] dead and then he died just a week or two later in his bunk alone what does that say is that like why am I going to put this burden on the people outside that I know and the whoever I do know left you know what he wanted to do he wanted to he wanted his family to have the ability to sue the Bureau of Prisons so that his daughter could go to college that's what he told me he's like what I'm GNA die here I'm gonna die there I'm gonna die in a couple of weeks anyway what's the

[36:49] difference oh my God yeah it's terrible that is eye opening super eye opening um given your Against torture and the actions you took how do you feel about the fact that many of the practices you exposed have been Justified or even continued under the guise of National Security and do you believe these justifications are genuine or are they merely convenient excuses to maintain bow sure you feel strongly um most of the most of the um the so-called

[37:19] enhanced interrogation techniques that I um I talked about have been banned all of the most serious ones have been banned what the um Obama administration ended up doing and they they did this thanks to the McCain Feinstein Amendment to the National Defense authorization Act was to um allow the use only of the techniques that have already been approved and are laid out in the Army Field Manual now there's a danger there the danger is that the Army Field Manual is an executive branch document it's not

[37:52] it's not made by an act of Congress and so if you get a pro torture president who wants to bring back the torture program and to do it legally all he has to do is change the army field man it's as simple as that it's a simple executive order and there's nothing to stop him so it's disappointing to me that we haven't written the changes in stone but I am happy that at least you know these these terrible techniques uh

[38:22] have been stopped it does frustrate me about how many things are taken away then now we got to fight for him to come back and them be like it's progress yeah exactly uh looking at the broader intelligence Community do you think there's a danger in how we romanticize or villainize figures like yourself does the Public's perception align with the reality of what it means to work in intelligence or does it obscure the true ethical dilemmas faced by those in the field right well you know we have a we have a a whistleblower protection act

[38:54] Federal whistleblower protection act in the United States but National security whistleblowers are Exempted from its protections yeah so if you work for yeah if you work for the Department of Labor or the Department of Agriculture God bless go ahead blow the whistle to your heart's content if you work for a CIA FBI NSA DOD you're probably gonna go to prison even if you do it right even if you go through the chain of command and the Congressional oversight committees you're probably at the least you're

[39:25] going to lose your job you're going to lose your security clearance at the very least but you'll probably end up going to prison as well that's wrong of course so we should have we should have protections it written in stone for going to the Senate select committee on intelligence or to the house permanent select committee on intelligence and Reporting evidence of waste fraud abuse or illegality to cleared staff officers that should be and that's an

[39:56] easy one that's a g there's basically no rules on retaliation right now in a sense no and in fact it's even worse now that the technology remember I blew the whistle in 2007 the technology has advanced so much that every CIA employee has a computer with software loaded on it where the AI on the computer will say hey these searches that he's been doing that makes me think he might might want

[40:27] to be a whistleblower and your computer will rat you out to the office of security I could totally imagine you're trying to find some case study case law or exactly cite something in code they're like why would you want to know that I'll tell you what happened to a friend of mine at the c um he had just started a job as the Director of a of a of a group of analysts from a certain geographical area so on his very first

[40:58] day he he searched for all the major newspapers in English for that geographical area he said two hours later two guys from security came to his office they want the media yeah why the heck are you looking at these newspapers he goes are you kidding me I'm in charge of the analysis for this part of the world I think I need to know what they're saying in the Press interesting yeah there's also a reward program at the CIA now um for people who

[41:30] rat out their colleagues who might be thinking about becoming whistleblowers that is hilarious that's very uh communist in a sense yeah it is it's it's very East German stazzy whoa um not to get too futuristic on you but Minority Report Vibes getting those you know um sure yes that's what it sounds like stranger things have happened yes damn yeah I haven't even gotten to your reviews on like

[42:01] precognition or S abilities or any of that do you have any thoughts on that whether it's you know the CIA experimented on that stuff in the 50s and 60s and up until 1974 and besides was wasting millions of dollars of the taxpayers money they just couldn't really quite figure out how to get to the bottom of it in 75 with the Advent of the church Committee in in the Senate and the pike Committee in the house they pretty much dropped it pretty

[42:33] much but then and this is after my time again with the development of this unbelievably sophisticated technology that we have now I understand that they're taking a a second look at things yeah I I have no idea if they've you know found a way to work any of it but yeah just the fact that at one point Paris iology was a a degree that you could earn was pretty crazy yeah yeah right funny uh finally as someone who

[43:05] has seen the darker side of power in politics how do you maintain hope what keeps you motivated to continue advocating for justice knowing these challenges and oppositions in my case that's a that's a good question um you know for a while I I felt um I felt hopeless and then what what turned me was was actually going to prison and I realized what an enormous community of like-minded people there are out there I said I I was in prison for 23 months and I received more than

[43:38] 7,000 letters when I was in prison letters of support I answered every single one of them because I thought you know what if these people total strangers are taking time out of their day to write me a letter to say thank you for what you did the least I can do is write them a letter thanking them for thinking of me and it opened my eyes to a community of people who care just as deeply as I

[44:09] do about human rights and civil rights and civil liberties about government overreach and about um how Americans have just kind of conceited their Liberty without so much as an argument you know they say that the ideological spectrum is this line that goes from left to right and I don't think that's true I think it's a circle and at one point the left and the right meet and I'm kind of close to that

[44:40] meeting point you mean like personally or in terms of your advocacy both actually um I was on a podcast in Florida a couple of weeks ago Danny Jones and uh his concrete podcast and um we were talking about this and I said you know you have to understand how weird it is for somebody like me who's considered himself to be a leftist all of his life to find myself in support of somebody like aan Bundy who's a

[45:12] right-wing extremist out west taking up arms against the whatever it is the National Park Service or yeah the Bureau of of mind just made me think it's like someone's doing something that it's come it's come to that though right and I think I think that's a broader view of how everybody feels about politics when it's not so much what we' support of the candidates viewpoints it's like we're so tired of some other way of living or you know yes just the opposite yes I've long believed

[45:43] that the Democratic party and the Republican Party are simply two sides of the same coin I agree completely yeah yeah jumping into the the short yes or no either or question section here so you can answer as short as you want or if something stands out go into it m do you believe that ethical Integrity should always come before National Security yes I would rather I would rather risk

[46:14] another 911 than to take the low road damn I would damn uh is loyalty to one's country more important than loyalty to one's personal values absolutely absolutely not given the chance would you choose to blow the whistle again knowing the consequences I'd do it again today the only thing I would do differently if anybody's watching this and they're thinking of blown the whistle listen please if please if there's one piece of advice that you

[46:45] absolutely have to take don't say a word unless your attorney is sitting in the chair next to you hire an attorney before you blow the whistle before advice do you think the CIA will ever fully Embrace Transparency no um funny thing though when when Gina haspel was named um CIA director by Donald Trump uh she was doing her confirmation hearings up on

[47:15] the senate in front of the Senate uh select committee on intelligence and she was asked about me and my Revelations and much to my shock she said that the torture program was a mistake and should never have been implemented and she was one of the founders of the torture program and she destroyed the evidence of the torture sessions but she said no that it was a mistake yeah interesting so still feeling the guilt there I

[47:47] suppose you believe that the current Global power structure is sustainable in the long term no I don't and I I believe that it's not because of theic American overuse of sanctions sanctions are going to be our demise we have sanctions on everybody you know I read recently we have sanctions on 68 different countries it's like seriously and then we're shocked when the Saudis uh pay for uh Chinese Goods in Yuan and they accept Yuan as payment for for oil instead of dollars we're shocked why just sanctions

[48:20] space next you know yeah yeah right that let me add something if I could apologize for going too long but you know we've got a we've got a law in this country saying that any country that violates sanctions on Iran must be sanctioned as well so when Barack Obama negotiated the jcpoa the Iran nuclear deal that open trade relations between the US and Iran as well as um the UK France Germany Switzerland Japan

[48:51] everybody else and Iran Donald Trump gets elected and he unilaterally pulls out of the jcpoa okay so we don't trade with Iran we have this law if you trade with Iran uh you're going to be sanctioned and the Brits the French the Germans and the Japanese are like well wait a minute you told us to trade with Iran you told us to sign this jcpoa so we did and now we actually have good trade relations with Iran and now you're saying you're going to sanction us you know what go ahead

[49:23] and sanction us and we didn't so they're trading with Iran and now we're all pissed off so is it just a big old intimidation tactic that's getting old yes and then I'll give you another example we have crippling economic sanctions on Venezuela okay to the point where Venezuela can't sell its oil and the economy is collapsing so what happens nobody wants to live in Venezuela so they come here and then we're like oh my God all these Venezuelans cross the

[49:54] border oh my God it's illegal immigration yeah we did the illegal immigration we collapsed their economy and then we can't believe that people don't want to live there anymore it's just wrong super good point they're like well where is the money let's go there yeah exactly yeah wow dude good Insight what would you say the future of intelligence work lies in more human intelligence than technology Ah that's The $64,000 Question I mean

[50:25] they were debating that when I first got hired the the job of the CIA is to recruit spies to steal secrets and then to analyze those secrets to allow policy makers to make the best informed policy simple but it's like there's this insatiable desire to develop new technology well you know what DARPA and NSA are already doing that and they're

[50:56] doing it with more expertise so really the CIA should be focused on human Source intelligence and it's not what happened was after 911 the CIA became a paramilitary organization so instead of recruiting spies to steal Secrets they're out there just killing people and kidnapping them and rendering them and you know overthrowing governments and medling we get nothing out of it in the end you know bu Deon would say that's administrative

[51:29] challenging oh my God yeah he would yes so so everything you're saying is allegedly I just need you to know oh do you think that torture can ever be justified under any circumstances no I don't I mean besides the fact that it doesn't work no ethically it can't got you and you know I don't even want to get into the implication on that is it possible to maintain one's Humanity while working in high States

[52:00] intelligence operations yes but uh you have to work at that constantly you know um it's it's not an accident that the CIA has the highest divorce rate of any organization anywhere in government okay it's it's it's close to 80% that's why and and I'll give you an example my first wife was how know they're not just promiscuous I'm just

[52:31] saying well they are I mean we we used to have this joke we used to have this joke at the CIA that when you go to a meeting don't touch the table because you don't know who was having sex on it last night yeah it's not good um but my first wife was a ballet teacher and you know she obviously was uncleared so I'd get home from work and she'd say how was your day I'd say good what' you do

[53:01] nothing Well who'd you who'd you see who'd you talk to nobody and then that's it I mean that's the extent of the conversation just assuming you're tapped all the time huh yeah and I can't tell her because I'm going to get polygraphed and they're going to say hey did you tell your wife classified information and then you know they're going to escort you out of the building if you say yes so um when I switched from anal is to operations yeah I remember my my son he was three at the time and he said Daddy

[53:32] why do you have six phones and I said well there are a lot of people who need to call me you're like right I'm trying to keep your mother with the mystery she doesn't know anything about my day yeah but I got six phones in My Den which is locked all the time and then one of those phones would go off at 11: which triggers a meeting at 2 a.m. so I have to do three-hour surveillance detection route and then do the meeting and then two hours back just in time to take a

[54:02] shower and shave and get back to the office interesting so is each phone like based on operation or what you're doing yes wow yeah and they were all burners all of them so I get home and she'd say what was her name and I'd say come on come on cut me a break I I had a meeting in the middle of the night you had a meeting how convenient you come home just in time to

[54:34] take a shower I'm like I swear to God I'm not cheating on you and then we got divorced and then my second wife was in the CIA and I am legally prohibited from saying anything about her but as I said at the start of the podcast don't trust anyone so do you feel like to the where they could be put in your life to the extent where they are put in your life super

[55:07] interesting yeah it's dangerous do you believe that the US government's actions are often more self-serving than altruistic oh the US government's actions are never altruistic no country's actions are altruistic you know I remember I remember U going into Kuwait to quit city with the Marines on Liberation day 1991 and uh it was an incredibly exciting time exciting operation we pushed out the Iraqi troops we reopened the American Embassy and um I remember a

[55:39] Kuwaiti saying well you didn't do this just because uh of the goodness of your heart you did this because of oil and I said so so what I mean if Iraq had gravel instead of oil yeah you're right we wouldn't have liberated you so you want us to leave super good point super good point it's like we didn't come here for nothing like yeah we came to help but also

[56:13] exactly damn yeah it's always what's in it for me before they do anything always is it more important to protect the nation's Secrets or to ensure public accountability oh without public accountability I don't think we can have democracy I really don't I mean that's why we have oversight committees if you can imagine the CIA was created in 1947 we didn't have Congressional oversight until 1975 so the CIA was just running you know a muck from 1947 to

[56:46] 1975 killing foreign leaders overthrowing yeah overthrowing governments spying on American citizens doing anything they wanted so you you have to have accountability otherwise you can't function as a proper democracy let's move on to the funner stuff here philosophical influences you have a favorite philosopher whose teachings have influenced you or your worldview especially regarding ethics and

[57:22] Justice wow I've read them all um you know at at the in the closing minutes of my TV show it's called the whistleblowers I like to quote um a different philosopher and I quote different people every episode we've done about 140 episodes so far I would probably say that the two that I've quoted the most often were Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King they AR they aren't really

[57:54] philosophers uh philosophers I would say maybe not even maybe probably Thomas meron yeah the Catholic thinker I do some research on him now yeah I'm not familiar interesting he's quite good quite good um are there any particular philosophical doctrines that resonate with you considering your experiences in intelligence and as a whistleblower I've I've become something of an absolutist on this issue and you

[58:26] know people will warn you that absolutism is is probably not the healthiest kind of uh of Doctrine but I always counter that by saying that at the CIA the culture is such that we're all taught that everything in life is a is a shade of gray right and I came to realize that that's just simply not true some things are

[58:57] black and white they're right or wrong and so I think the prevailing wisdom is incorrect and does a disservice to the country to try to instill the idea of the gray area in CIA employees I think it's just wrong that's kind of a good segue to the next one because I was going to ask how your outlook involved after the experien of the CIA whistleblowing like what proed the changes your philosophical

[59:30] you know um I remember my wife telling me she said you're at the CIA for 15 years and they've known you for 22 23 years and it turned out they didn't know you at all not at all I mean I I guess I didn't even really know myself at the time to to

[1:00:00] think that when they would double down I would double down too in retrospect if they had come to me and said after I went on ABC News and said you know damn it kiraku shut your mouth you're not supposed to be talking about that stuff just shut your mouth I might have said okay sorry my bad sorry and then maybe I would have worked quietly with a couple of members of

[1:00:31] Congress to you know change the legislation whatever but they came down on me like a ton of bricks you know three Espionage charges like what did they think I was gonna do just roll over I was just gonna roll over and give up your whole life yeah I had to fight and then I started getting people on my side like you know like John McCain or um uh Senator Chuck Grassley or Ron

[1:01:02] Paul and um by the way opened up my eyes to Politics as a teenager he's a great guy he's a great human being just the first person who I've ever saw speak truth to power te as a teen I was like whoa I was like looking around like why not this guy and adults were telling me radical it would never happen because he actually wants us to follow the the Constitution that's so radical oh my God looking back right

[1:01:35] yeah what's wrong with people let's go on to extral life and unidentified phenomena here what are your thoughts on the existence of ET and do you believe we've been visited by beings from other planets or Dimensions when I first joined the CIA the first question that all my friends and family members had was what I had learned about extraterrestrials and the answer how annoying it's like hey you're a hacker get in my Facebook

[1:02:06] it's one of those right right right right and I learned nothing at the CI nothing nothing at all it's it's a DOD thing with that with that said with that said when I was 17 years old my parents owned a restaurant in the neighboring town we lived in Newcastle Pennsylvania the restaurant was in Sharon Pennsylvania wasn't was it no it was like a family restaurant it was

[1:02:36] called the Phoenix Family Restaurant and um my dad and I were working midnight shift so we were going to start working Friday at 11 o'clock so this is Amish territory and as you probably know the Amish don't have electricity so when you drive from one town to the other it is just black outside you you can't see anything so we're driving north on State Route 60 it's about 1030 at night dark as all get out and there's this flash of brilliant

[1:03:11] like blinding white light and he and I both looked up at it and then there was a second Flash and then a third and then this orange trapezoid lit up and it was just hanging there it was just hovering so my dad pulls the car over and we get out of the car and we're standing there on the side of the road and we're just looking at this thing hovering so it was it was clearly

[1:03:42] metallic it had round lights orange lights in the four corners I the angles you know because it it was like this and um and a guy pulled up behind us and got out of his car and he goes what is that and my dad goes I don't know and then it just went at this fantastic speed and it just disappeared like you wouldn't have seen it if you blink

[1:04:14] exactly it was unlike anything I had ever seen before and I've never seen anything similar since we got back in the car not saying a word finally we're halfway to the restaurant and I said to my dad so should we like call somebody should we call the cops and he says and tell him what we saw a UFO and it flew away we have missing time right I'll never forget it as long as I

[1:04:45] live I have no idea what it was damn no idea with these increasing public interest in UFOs do you think governments know more about these OCC occurrences than they descriped I do and I'll tell you why when I was at the CIA my cousin um was in the Navy and he was his best friend in the Navy was um an F-16 pilot we were all at Christmas dinner

[1:05:16] one night and um and he said to me hey the pilot he goes so what what can you tell me about UFOs and I go me I go can you tell me about UFOs you're the one flying around up there I don't know anything about UFOs he said I'll tell you I saw two things that I just can't explain while he was flying he said one time I saw something come out of the water and just go straight up at you know better than the

[1:05:47] speed of sound out of the water and he said another time he saw something that looked like a saucer go down scoop up water and then take off and he said you know yeah you have to make reports whenever you see an anomaly like this you have to write it up and he said the brass just sat on it nobody asked them for a followup nobody came back and said hey you know can you give us a little bit more detail nothing they just pretended it never

[1:06:20] happened yeah trying to imagine this desk of reports of these insane like seriously Sci-Fi movies all over seriously um are you are unexplained phenomena more likely extraterrestrial or interdimensional what leads you to this belief honest to God I have no idea I couldn't even speculate I have no idea yeah that's the that's the big question too I guess how would you how would the confirmation of intelligent extal life impact global

[1:06:52] politics and societal beliefs well that was always the big fear that economy right and if the government were to confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life that people would go nuts and they would take to the streets and it would be chaos and Anarchy and then they Declassified all those documents from the Pentagon and people were like me it's a good point though it's not like they make it press in the newspaper or front page news or

[1:07:24] anything either so yeah uh during your tenure did you encounter information that made you question your understanding of the Universe I know you just gave some good examples for it not not from classified information no no it was all very straightforward there were certainly some things that that surprised me um I probably can't get into it but um yeah it kind of changed my worldview as

[1:07:54] to who our friends were were and who our friends were not Ah that's a good point putting it makes you think I got you yeah um few more questions spiritual practices personal beliefs do you practice meditation prayer or divination to find guidance and maintain wellbeing the easy answer is no um I was raised uh Greek Orthodox I'm I'm still Greek Orthodox I regret to say that I'm not a regular churchgoer that's not because of the

[1:08:27] CIA that's it's for personal you know reasons post CIA personal reasons but um no you know I have a lot of friends who who do meditation all the time and say that I would get some great benefit out of it and I just I've never gotten around to trying it it just seems like silly to me but they swear that it's beneficial so I don't know maybe one of these days you're like I don't turn off this mind uh has your Expos exposure to different cultures LED you to explore or

[1:08:58] adopt any spiritual or philosophical traditions it's a good question um no it's led me to um it's led me to more to to more um greatly respect other beliefs and traditions you know ever since I was a 15-year-old I've had this this passion about the Middle East I'm fascinated by the history and

[1:09:30] the culture and the music and the architecture and the it just everything I I just love the Middle East the CIA taught me to speak Arabic I spent a good chunk of my adult life in the Middle East loved every second of it which by the way just for the listeners reference you have really good podcasts going into much more detail on those stories and yeah like way more action oriented than I really wanted to focus on your background and upbringing here but just in case anyone's wondering there's a lot more insightful interviews out there on

[1:10:02] what you've done and contributed yeah in times of stress do you turn to spiritual practices for clarity I know you said you're not really into all that Greek or Orthodox but has any of it helped you navigate complex situations the the Orthodox church has a large number of saints and um you know whether they're is a God or not I'll leave to bigger Minds than my own but I will say that I I do take um comfort in reading about

[1:10:34] the lives of the Saints because they were all so much more patient than I am and so much more forgiving than I am you know better people than I am so I I do enjoy that do you find commonalities and all those Universal truths and absolutely religious books in general somebody sent me a book when I was in prison called um a history of God and I didn't read it at first I let it sit for several weeks then I finally picked it up and once I picked it up I

[1:11:05] could not put it down the god that we worship now Bears Zero resemblance to the god that we worshiped 2,000 or 3,000 years ago zero resemblance you know it's like you know we all laugh about the blond haired blueeyed Jesus that that so many people believe in that we all know didn't exist um but our concept of God has changed so

[1:11:36] dramatically there we are it's changed so dramatically over the years over the centuries that you can't recognize God from the start to the Finish it's changed that much Point God's evolving too mhm h no one thinks about that that is a crazy thought no one says that um talked about books right now any like books you would like to reference for listeners that really impacted you

[1:12:07] influenced yeah there were two one by John Whitehead called the government of wolves very OnPoint book about government overreach but there's one that's even more important written by a Harvard law professor by the name of Harvey silverglate it's called three felonies a day and in this book it's a very important book he argues that we are so over criminalized so over regulated that the average American on the average day going about his or her

[1:12:38] normal business commits three felonies every single day with the point being if you somehow or for some reason run a foul of the government and they want to get you they're going to get you and there's nothing you can do to protect yourself it's a dramatic book a super good point too just good Clarity and heads up provide value don't fight yeah in summary yeah well I don't want

[1:13:12] to say don't fight because I understand your whole career has been you know made around fighting yeah um last words here on what it means to you to be more than rich and then we'll get into promotional stuff you want to promote yeah listen I I will never know what it's like to be rich uh one of the one of the things that uh that all whistleblowers have in common is that we're R we're ruined financially ruined and uh an Israeli uh psychologist who wrote

[1:13:44] a book about whistleblowers told me once that if there's one thing that all whistleblowers have in common it's that they never make a financial comeback never yeah so listen if you're if if you can't live without your annual golf vacations to Hilton Head or your trips to Hawaii or you know your Mercedes E-Class or whatever then this is not the life for you but with that

[1:14:16] said I can sleep at night and my children respect me and I feel like I've left a legacy for my as yet unborn grandchildren to be proud of me when I'm gone and they want to know what kind of person I was damn damn it's been an honor to meet you today anything mine thanks for promote promote anything last words missfits website yeah sure um I everything I do I

[1:14:49] put on substack it's it's at John kiraku um I've got a new book coming out in two months I decided to do something completely totally different I've I've written seven books already all about intelligence in the CIA excuse me this one is called Remains of the Day The Ultimate Guide to Washington DC's historic cemeteries so something different that is pretty cool is it is that a metaphor or is it a literal no no

[1:15:19] it's it's actually a field guide to to all of Washington DC's cemeteries yo that should get you out of financial ruin let's go I hope so and the Smithsonian institution thinks it's going to be a great addition to the gift shop so dude kudos to still being creative and staying positive so well I'll tell you one of the weird things that happened because of this that I I called my publisher and I said listen you know I know you guys don't normally publish books like this but I did it for myself and it was fun and interesting I tell these wonderful stories about

[1:15:51] people nobody's ever heard of but they had these incredible lives and they're all buried in Washington and he's like yeah we don't really do books like that but okay just send it to me I'll take a look at it so he calls me like three weeks later and he says dude he says this is the best book you've ever written and I said really and he said the editorial board loved it so much they want to commission three more they want the mafia Graves of New York City which I'm about 40% done with they want

[1:16:21] the historic cemeteries of Chicago and the country western Graves of Nashville damn so I've got those on contract now that's so cool and all all just to shine light on others you know yeah and I'll tell you what I these books are not about the most famous people in these cemeteries it's about the most interesting people in these cemeteries oh wow yeah cool stuff that is a great way to end the show I'm asking what it means to be more than rich and you're like it's about you know

[1:16:52] the actual life you live not the money not the money nice all right John nice to meet you we'll be nice to meet you thanks for having me [Music]
