Title: Former CIA agent John Kiriakou
Show: Discussions of Truth
Date: 2018-07-28
URL: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO8121469842.mp3
Duration: 62:00

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[00:21] Little grateful dead there for you on Wednesday afternoon Welcome to discussions. I'm your host Ian Hamilton trot you. This is a special edition Last week if you missed the program Don't feel left out our Basel took over Number of hours is my understanding and certainly the five o'clock hour As it came into Miami. It's the largest art festival Certainly in Miami on a yearly basis and quite possibly in the world

[00:54] Art Basel originally from Basel Switzerland locations in Hong Kong Miami and Basel So the grateful dead are a very special band and certainly I grew up listening to the and continue to grow up listening to them and I think they are touring Without of course their famed lead singer Jerry Garcia I Want to give a very special

[01:25] shout out to a Person that I've recently connected with and If You're listening in Canada there Fabiola Hello, and thanks for listening I can get into Fabiola's case at another time, but certainly would want to the

[01:57] the Privilege and Permission to do so but Anyway, I appreciate you listening to the to the program today in about three four minutes will be joined by Former CIA agent John Kiriakou Will be rejoining the program he was on a few weeks ago and

[02:28] Was actually scheduled to be on last week but because the Because the time time slot got sold to a higher bidder if you will no, I don't know if that's that's true or not but When that festival moves into town it takes takes takes all the hotels out It takes all the restaurants books all the restaurants up and it booked the hours up of this Wonderful station. This is Winwood radio and again. I am your host Ian Hamilton

[02:59] trot yay I Do have the five o'clock hour for you and Let's see that is a Phone that I'm not going to answer And it should be muted but anyway, so The five o'clock hour I will go with regularly regularly schedule scheduled program and We'll be re-hosting again J.P. Lindstra. He's got his PhD from

[03:34] Oxford in England and we'll be talking to us about his new book JP has dedicated a lot of his time to Empowering women's and women's rights and when he was on the program last he spoke about his time in BASC the BASC region of Spain his new book is dedicated to poetry and We'll talk about some of the poetry that he's contributed Through that publication He'll be joining at five o'clock now Next month is a great month and we'll be starting the new year off by the way happy holidays to you and your family

[04:11] We'll be starting the new year off By bringing on some incredible guests Dan winter will be joining us. He's a fractal field theorist and scientist former system analyst at IBM the way this man's brain operates is Seemingly absolutely incredible and certainly unlike the majority of how our brains operate and personally speaking He'll be on the show. He'll be our first guest for 2018 Followed by dr. Sherry Tenpenny

[04:43] She's an osteopathic medical doctor and we'll be talking extensively about vaccines and we'll keep it on that tune the vaccine tune By hosting president of the National Vaccine Information Center later in the month Barbara Lowe Fisher Barbara's work is absolutely incredible and she's been dedicating a few decades to informing public about Vaccines The benefits of and the risks

[05:15] I'm gonna cut to a short break and We'll be right back with you with Mr. John Kiriakku Thanks for joining discussions for this special Wednesday edition at the four o'clock hour on windwood radio and I am your host Ian Trotty a

[06:49] Okay, thanks for that quick break again. You're on winwood radio calm I'm your host for your weekly program at the five o'clock hour. There's a special edition the four o'clock hour I Ian Trotty a and We have for a second time the brilliant and Wonderful mr. John Kiriakku with this again John. Are you there? I sure am. Thanks for having me dude, it's a total pleasure man and

[07:20] We it's it's I thank you again for coming on in such a quick It's it was just a few weeks ago that that you were on and we had a great discussion and I think a lot's probably happened in your life in that time frame and Dude, I mean You are an incredible guy. In fact, I was talking to a guy about you today and You know, he says he's and let me just give you this angle He is comparing to other if you will and I don't like to use these terms like this But let's just use it for a moment

[07:51] Blowing the whistle other people that have come out about wrong doings in the government or in corporations or whatever So he drew a parallel and said hey look, you know, I mean I wouldn't have a problem with the guy like Snowden, but he Gave too much information to other countries and so he says look that's very very treasonous However, what John has done? Isn't that at all and and and if anything John was very wronged by what happened to him and your case because what you

[08:22] Did wasn't as far as I'm concerned wasn't treason at all You were being honest and certainly you probably broke that boundary with the the contractor whatever agreement you had with with the CIA but That aside know know that know John that you are admired and You're welcome, man, I appreciate that it's easy to it's easy to fall into a funk and

[08:53] and You end up dwelling on your own problems and your own trouble getting back into the swing of everyday life So thanks that means a lot to me. I appreciate it. I Can't imagine what you've what you what you experienced And I was I was listening to an interview you gave and in Denver and you were talking about Being kind of accused of being a rat and And I guess in in that environment that's those are those I think you used it in that interview. Those are fighting words

[09:30] Yeah, and so I don't know, you know and and I'm listening to you John and you're like, you know what I stood up in the middle of the cafeteria and Yeah, I mean with with you and you said you were bluffing, but this guy didn't realize that you were bluffing But I'm like and I don't know what kind of man you are. You just seem like a really nice person And I don't know physically how imposing you are, but certainly you've been tactically trained to you took down the number three operative in al Qaeda, so it's not like your mince meat, but

[10:03] You stand up with all these hardened criminals murderers rapists XYZ and you're like, can you describe that? Can you describe that for listeners John? Can you go through that again? I mean, yeah, I had made it I had made it all the way to practically the end of my sentence and and and and I was in the cafeteria then the cafeteria is the only place in the prison where the guards are Afraid for their own safety because you've got 1,400 people and 10 guards and it's the only place where they can very easily be overwhelmed

[10:39] Well, there was a new guy in the prison and the night before my one of my cellmates who? Who had been the the auditor general of Cleveland, Ohio was in on a corruption charge Said to me that he had been down in the in the medical Unit and that there was a guy down there saying that I was a rat And I said who was this guy because like like you said in your intro when you call somebody a rat in prison Those are fighting words bloods going to be spilled And and my cell you said he didn't know who he was that the guy was new

[11:11] So I said point him out to me Frank. I want to see who this son of a gun is so the next day in the cafeteria Frank pointed the guy out to me and I had never seen this guy before he had Just arrived and I don't know if he had read something about me or Somebody had said something to him. I have no idea But I knew that I had to nip this in the bud and so I've made a big scene So I I'm gonna temper my language For your list

[11:42] But I stood up in the cafeteria and I shouted hey and to answer an earlier question. I'm six one 250 pounds. I'm a big guy. Okay, I shouted hey you have something to say to me and And this guy with terrible skin really scruffy beard He said, you know what I said and I said let's settle it right now Hmm. So he he said After dinner you come to my room and I said F that I said right now

[12:14] Well, this was over the Aryan table And so one of the Aryans ran over to me and said dude Don't fight this guy in here if you do we're all going to solitary and I said I'm gonna kill this guy I had to run kind of a show and So I got myself actually pretty worked up and And one of the Italians and when I say Italians I mean with quotation marks around it He was he was a senior captain in the Bonanno crime family

[12:47] Yeah, Sicilian so he kind of tugged at my sleeve and very softly He said what in the world are you doing and I said I swear to God I'm gonna kill this guy and he said no, you're not you're gonna finish dinner And you're gonna go back to my room and you're gonna read the USA today So I looked at him He sort of shook me out of this fury that I was in and I said, okay. I trust you So I picked up my tray I dropped it off at the little cleaning window and I went to his room and I sat down and I started reading the USA today

[13:20] About 20 minutes he come later He comes back to his room and he smiles at me and he said it's all taken care of I said well, what's that supposed to mean? It's all taken care of and he said well apparently this young man did not understand your status in the prison and In the Italian community. I'm not Italian. I'm Greek But I was I was adopted by the Italians in prison And I said okay. All right, and I walked across the hall to my room Well a few minutes after that

[13:51] Here comes the guy with the bad skin and the scruffy beard I saw him out of the corner of my eye and he came to the entrance of my room and I said, what do you want? Well his lip was bleeding his nose was bleeding his eye was swollen and Very meekly and humbly. He said I'm sorry. I called you a rat. I should never have done that and I apologize And I thought to myself well now's not the time for weakness So I said get out of here before I break your legs

[14:24] The guy never spoke to me again Never spoke to me again But you know I I remember like really being nervous as this was all going down because here I had made it like I say virtually to the end of my sentence without anybody giving me any trouble at least no trouble that I couldn't handle and I could see that this was gonna get physical very quickly Yeah, so Okay, it might sound interesting why I opened up the

[14:55] Broadcast with that but basically what I want Listeners to understand is what they're dealing with with John Kariaku and John and I've said it again. I'll say it here again. I've said it before I'll say it again John is a an American hero as far as I'm concerned and as far as you should be concerned He should be considered as such and now so John Thank you. What I'm much what I'm portraying here is

[15:28] You're not somebody to mess around with And I like to think that I'm the nicest guy in the world, but you know prisons a different world and No in prison. I'm not someone to be messed around with and Nor in Pakistan and Nor on your homeland and so John is it is it is it is it just to draw a comparison and say Hey, the way you called this guy out in Federal prison is exactly the way you called out

[16:04] The employer Your employer your federal employer. Oh, that's a that's a good question. You know at the CIA You are trained to believe that that everything in life Is a shade of gray Right, there are no rights and no wrongs everything is is some different shade of gray And I found that that just wasn't true that there are some things that are right and wrong For me torture was one of those things. It's just wrong

[16:37] It's wrong under any circumstances especially for a country that wants to appear to other countries to be a shining beacon of hope and democracy and human rights and civil liberties and So for me it was clear Yeah, and let me let me as I'm thinking through this this response because nobody's really ever asked me that question before I've changed over the years Many people we like to think that you know, we we're set in our ways. We don't really change

[17:11] I've changed fundamentally over the last ten or ten or so years and and I feel more strongly now Then I did ten years ago about blowing the whistle on torture and it was that fundamental belief in right and wrong and black and white that That I think led me to stand up for myself that day in prison as well Yeah, okay, so not only did you stand up for yourself, but in many ways

[17:45] You stood up for all the rest of us As taxpayers as citizens as anybody that's putting in a hard day's work with honesty and Upmost transparent transparency Let's shift gears a moment and and if you don't mind because I know this information you told it to me And if it's not something you can get into I understand, but I want to shift gears into the European Parliament Can you describe? You recently took a trip

[18:16] Yes, and and and and when you got back and I had approached you and you'd said hey lucky and you know I actually have an interesting story. I'd gotten into it. I don't know really know what that meant But can you tell listeners exactly what happened when you went to Europe and your? Paint the picture of why you were there what they were hoping to get from you what you were giving them And then what happened what sort of exchange transpired Sure, I've made I've made four or five trips to Europe since I got home from prison

[18:47] And always for work, you know in in Europe They have such respect for whistleblowers and for national security whistleblowers in particular and human rights and so I've been asked for example to Help the Greek government write a new whistleblower protection law. I did a series of events in Germany Luxembourg Where else Iceland and Ireland related to the release of my second and third books? There's just they treat whistleblowers differently

[19:18] they treat whistleblowers with respect and they realize the value of whistleblowers to society there, so a Couple of months ago. No, well less than that about a month and a half ago I was invited by a member of the European Parliament from Greece his name is Delios Couloglu He he's a member of the the governing cities a party, which is a progressive party and He asked me to appear on a panel on national security whistleblowing

[19:48] Before the European Parliament. I was delighted to accept And actually when I was in prison I received an invitation to speak at the European Parliament and so I wrote a speech and And my attorney went and delivered it for me So I was excited to go do it in person and and I went I was only in in Brussels for a day I just flew in to give the speech and then fly back out again when I arrived I went to the European Parliament straight from the from the airport and We were meeting with several different MEPs and just getting the the agenda the last minute details of the agenda together

[20:24] And then one of the other speakers one of the other Americans who had been asked to speak Who was a representative of? People for Bernie which became Americans for Bernie Announced quite dramatically that she would not appear on a panel if I were going to be on the panel I thought she was kidding and I actually laughed when she said it And she said I'm sorry. I'm serious But you appear on the Sputnik radio network and it's owned by the Russians

[20:57] And I just refused to be on a panel with you and I Was shocked to the point of being speechless So the MEP was was embarrassed by this There were two panels I was going to speak at anyway And so I was actually removed from that first panel and instead I gave a I gave an interview to Greek national television For that hour and then I spoke on the afternoon panel with Medea Benjamin and a couple of European whistleblowers So it all it all worked out

[21:28] But you know it was just a reminder that the long Judgmental arm of American political society reached all the way across the ocean to the European Parliament in Brussels and gave me a good smack across the face Yeah, wow What sort of what sort of questions were asked you from your From from Greece and I know your your grandfather and Migrated to the United States and and his wife I'm assuming a family and it was a federal Franklin Franklin Delano Roosevelt that that actually personally

[22:03] Met them and and as you had mentioned on the previous broadcast gave them your start My grandfather nobody loved Franklin Roosevelt more than my grandfather did Of course, you know, I was being facetious in that story To hear my grandfather tell the tale It was as though Franklin Roosevelt met met them at Ellis Island and gave him citizenship and a job and a house and Allowed him to live happily ever after and indeed until the day my grandfather died in 1978

[22:34] He had a framed picture of Franklin Roosevelt sitting on the on the television so So the Democratic Party was actually very important to me growing up I my grandfather and I were very very close and You know, he would tell me stories Ranging from going to a Sacco and Venzetti rally in 1921 when he came to the United States for the first time To what it was like going through the depression and then going back to Greece and then getting married returning to the United States and

[23:07] Democratic politics and John Kennedy and you know the whole thing. He was just so proud to be an American Yeah, and he credited Franklin Roosevelt the Democratic Party for for the success that he found in life And when I say success it was very modest success My grandfather was a slab cutter in a steel mill and after he retired. He became a butcher in a small grocery store he lived in a house that when he died was worth $6,000 and only owned a car during my lifetime before that he never owned a car

[23:41] So this was a guy of very modest means but he instilled in me this sense that That we always have to work hard that education is more important than anything and that we always always Have to help people less fortunate than we are Wow incredible incredible morals So this is this is an interesting thing but but but What I what I'm interested in hearing is is how this Greek national television

[24:11] How did they receive you and what kind of questions? Did they ask of you and then of course this this this ties into? Really are our previous kind of note in in that In that we are living a system and certainly it has modifications But we're living a system today in the United States that that's handed down through through shapings of the United Kingdom, but it all kind of in sepson and even most of the philosophies are in at Oxford and Cambridge are based off of

[24:45] Really the birthplace of democracy, which would be Athens. Yeah, so How how does how does that if you can't if you would a month your mother country a mother country for you? And certainly for the US. How do you how do they receive you? Oh, you know Grease is like paradise for me not just because of the pretty beaches and palm trees, but they treat me like a king I was only out of prison. I'm gonna say four months When the Greek government invited me to go for the first time to discuss with them the issue of a whistleblower protection law

[25:20] And I thought great what a what a fun opportunity. I Hadn't been to Greece in I don't know four or five years So it was gonna be a lot of fun. Well, I didn't realize that I was gonna have a police escort to all of my meetings I was gonna have dinner with the minister of justice in his home The minister of state for anti-corruption took me out for a for a dinner at a restaurant with a dozen staff members I did I did television and radio interviews and then when I got back to the states

[25:50] Yeah Journalists found me here to to do follow-up interviews on this whistleblower protection law I made three trips to Greece for that whistleblower protection law in 2015 and they're just in the process of enacting it in the Greek Parliament now So the Greeks more more than anybody else in the world They just treat me with great respect and love and they love the fact that I'm Greek American And I'm proud of my heritage and that I served my country the United States And that I also want to help the people of Greece with that said

[26:24] After I blew the whistle on the torture program I Really didn't like the the direction the country was going and so I decided that I was going to apply for Greek citizenship and The Greeks welcomed my application. I got citizenship for myself and for all five of my children Really, it's just for ease of travel and more importantly It's if my kids want to go to to college or to a university or graduate school in Europe They can they can do that for free or for next to free

[26:57] But I'm I'm proud to be an American and I'm also proud to be a Greek. Yeah, sure now what? what sort of what sort of laws are they shaping that what are they doing it to to Soften that that whistle-blowing if you will if that makes any sense what what what are they doing and as far as that that goes On the Greek side Greek side and also European Union side. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny

[27:27] There's really no agreement among EU members on whistle-blower protections Germany for example one of the most progressive countries on the continent has zero whistle-blower protections and actually Actively prosecutes some whistle-blowers in the in the private sector So Germany is really behind the times the Greeks are very very progressive as are the Czechs and the Irish and a couple of other countries Greece had a really terrible whistle-blower protection law where it essentially applied only to banking and

[28:01] you had to physically See with your own eyes of banking official taking a bribe or Laundry money, you know, you had to actually be in the room and witness it So it was so narrowly written that as a result nobody was ever prosecuted under that law So working with an Australian think tank that specializes on whistle-blower issues. I offered them Some new language for for a law that focused not just on national security was so blowing but also

[28:33] A broader governmental whistle-blowing, you know, there's a there's a big problem for example with corruption in Greece official corruption sure and So they they amended it and changed it and moved things around and and really made it Greek and That's what they're gonna vote on soon Cool and then the European side you you're looking at like we're looking at like Ireland as as as kind of one of the forefront Movers and shakers to to make it more accessible. Yeah, it's it's it's the oddest collection of

[29:07] of Countries and it's not just in the European Union I was working with this Australian think tank called blueprint for free speech and They're they're the ones that go around the world and offer governments Sample language on whistle-blower protection laws and so they've been able to successfully pass such laws in places as diverse as Canada and Zambia and Ethiopia, I mean, it's just the oddest thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and so I mentioned to to the

[29:37] Director of this think tank that I had a really great relationship with the current progressive government in Greece I thought I could get an appointment with the minister of justice I he ended up just being absolutely wonderful with me and It wasn't easy just because there are lots of competing interests and everybody wants to take Responsibility for for something when it's a success So so it took three trips and it took two and a half years, but we're just about there What what does that language look like John? Give us give us a

[30:10] Give us give us an idea what what what it looked like before and then after being changed. Can you give us some words? Yeah, so before like I told you it was just so restrictive as to be not worth the paper. It was written on Now we're talking about Protections, I mean, there's there's a there's an internationally recognized Legal definition of whistleblowing and that is bringing to light any evidence of waste fraud abuse Illegality or threats to the public health or public safety? So it's around that definition that we're able to build a proposed law

[30:46] And it's the the basis of it is that people have to know and they have to understand and appreciate that They will be protected that there won't be any retribution against them for for blowing the whistle That there has to be a mechanism in place and this is also very important because countries many countries Including Greece don't have for example an inspector general system in in their government There's literally nowhere to go to blow the whistle other than to the public prosecutor and a lot of people don't want to do that and

[31:17] So it calls for the creation of an inspector general system in every ministry and department in government and And it lays out a foundation by which an employee when he or she sees Waste fraud abuse and illegality can go in in many cases Anonymous leave they choose to do so and report that waste fraud abuse It just had never really occurred to them before and really what they didn't appreciate was the fact that they needed such a law They thought well, we have a law in the books. That's good enough and it wasn't good enough

[31:53] Wow, okay Let's go. Let's go in now. Let's go into 9-11 and I and I've heard you say this because I've listened to other interviews and and and you see a big change and certainly Certainly, there is a massive change Since 9-11 happened to our rights Yes, now we know that Anything any social media post anything, you know can be used as evidence against Us and then we've got you know, we've got like Joan drone drone drops

[32:24] We can be taken out without any real reason the stuff like that. It just sounds like absurd, right? Oh when the attorney general the United States Tells a sitting us senator. I'm talking about Eric Holder and Rand Paul When Eric Holder tells Rand Paul with a totally straight face that the president has the authority to kill an American citizen on American soil without benefit of trial You know, we have a problem. That is a direct and dangerous threat to our civil liberties

[32:55] Yeah, I mean that just sounds totally absurd and how absurd how can this be law? How how John and and What what happened in 9-11? I mean what what happened and and and and what's what's the best way to kind of I Mean this is what I'm attempting to do right by broadcasting This is one of the things I'm trying to do by broadcasting on a weekly basis that you kind of educate and inform listeners get them to say

[33:27] Oh, wow, wait, wait a second. Who's this John guy that got slammed in jail for two years? There was looking at 40 years that was charged with treason That he could have been could it could be receiving the death could have received a death penalty type crime And all he did was say hey wait this guy's getting tortured. That's against you and law Right, I mean yeah, that's what I'm doing an international law United Nations law has the power of law in the United States

[33:57] That's something that most Americans don't understand. This this all started with passage of the Patriot Act you know, we were we were angry and and Almost no one in Congress had the guts To vote on the Patriot Act and indeed I Couldn't even name a single member of Congress who actually took the trouble to read the Patriot Act, right? We were all and furious with al-Qaeda. We wanted revenge. We wanted to to kill them all We wanted to you know, get our September 10th country back

[34:28] But nothing ever changed back. It's only gotten progressively worse And this is the thing about the intelligence community especially about this about the CIA the CIA will constantly push the boundaries of Propriety and of legality to see what they can get away with and it's up to the oversight committees on Capitol Hill to tell them No, you can't do that Because if there's nobody there to tell them no They'll just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and that's what has happened since September 11th

[35:00] now it can you imagine on September 10th if someone had told you that in Six months or eight months we would have a secret torture program We would have a system of extraordinary renditions where we're kidnapping people and taking them to third countries to be tortured If someone had told you that we would have a secret archipelago of prisons around the world where we took people for torture I Mean would you would you believe me if I said that the CIA had hacked into the Senate intelligence committees computers?

[35:32] They admitted it in a statement by the director and nothing ever came of it So here's a nobody would yeah No, you we I mean yeah would have been mind-boggling like wait is that the US or that's some other countries that Russia, right? You'd be thinking that I'd be thinking that might be Russia not the United States Here's another thing that that isn't it is interesting John in that in that you've given you've given an example of How for instance and I think you I think you were talking about your your guy Abu Zabeda in Guantanamo where

[36:05] You the CIA couldn't get a peep out of them and they were slamming them up against the wall And they were violating this and that and that and then the FBI rolls in there and he offers him a date and he offers I'm a prune and he starts yeah, I'm building rapport with the guy and They start cracking him. Oh Yeah, that's it. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, sure You know that this is another fundamental difference and this is a difference between the CIA and the FBI I Yeah, I say on my own radio show Ian all the time that we've got this disease in Washington and the disease is

[36:37] The smartest guy in the room disease, right? So many of our politicians so many of our bureaucrats think they're the smartest guy in the room And they won't listen to to logic from anybody else. That's the CIA They think they're all the smartest guys in the room. So you have CIA leaders Demanding of the president that he allowed them to take over interrogation of prisoners overseas The FBI has been doing that since 1946 since the Nuremberg trials They know what they're doing. They're good at it. They get results, but the CIA wanted to take over

[37:13] Well, George W. Bush allowed the CIA to take over and Within hours of that decision they began to torture Abu Zubaydah later. They tortured other prisoners as well the FBI was was so Disturbed by this decision that Robert Mueller when he was FBI director ordered all FBI employees to leave the country Where the where the torture was taking place so as not to be associated with it But you look you look at the aftermath to you look at what happened

[37:45] What happened is as soon as they started torturing up as a beta He clammed up and he provided no actionable intelligence to save American lives When the FBI was interrogating Abu Zubaydah as you noted in your intro You offer the guy some dates you offer the guy a cigarette You know, you show him a letter from his mother that the Red Cross delivered and he's gonna talk to you You establish a rapport you establish a relationship and a certain level of trust and he's going to open

[38:18] Up to you and to the FBI he did provide actionable intelligence that saved American lives Wow So where does this where does this notion come from? John in the culture of the CIA and who knows maybe you do you do if they were practicing Torture elements of torture previous to you joining the agency But where does this where does this culture come from and who's it sounds like? Bush signed off on it and he agreed to it and then he's on national TV and he's saying he's saying we're not torturing and then he kind

[38:53] Of pins you in a hole and he's and it sounds like Some rogue agent of the agency may come out. It just sounds real messy, but who's I mean who where does this Incept where where does who and where in that organization has the idea that doing this to another human being is is a good way to to solve a problem Well, there there was an echo chamber in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, you know You've got a lot of alpha dogs at the CIA tough guys knuckle-draggers in some cases not necessarily intellectuals and

[39:27] They're they're they're all they all blame themselves were rightfully in the case of the 9-11 attacks They blame themselves for the attack. It was the most massive intelligence failure in American history and So they need to make good for the American people. It's payback time But when you have all these alpha dogs all barking at each other in the same room They try it out do each other and remember there's there's little to no oversight from Capitol Hill And so there's no one to say no you can't do that. There's no one to say no. That's against the law

[39:59] Nothing was against the law, you know the you and by the memos Legalized everything. I mean there were very specific laws prohibiting torture in this country prohibiting exactly and specifically The methods that the CIA then used against that was a beta and others So who is gonna tell George Tennant? No, or Jose Rodriguez or co for black or any of the other? Senior officers and counter-terrorism people at the CIA. There was nobody to tell them no and one thing led to the other and the

[40:31] Next thing, you know, we've committed crimes against humanity So who who's got the ultimate jurisdiction over the CIA? The House and Senate Intelligence Committees the question is do they want to exercise that jurisdiction and that's an entirely different issue Okay. Wow. All right, so this is uh, this is crazy stuff Let's talk about your books. Can you describe? The books that you've got now now John you were Yeah, it sounded like you spent like a million dollars defending yourself in court

[41:05] You're a million one hundred and fifty thousand dollars Dude, I still them I still owe them eight hundred and eighty thousand. Oh, holy moly, which I'll never pay I'll never be able to pay Uh-huh, uh-huh This is the Eastern District of Virginia. Is that right? That's where you were tried Yeah, the Eastern District of Virginia It's also called the espionage court because no national security defendant has ever won a case there and

[41:35] Something about I don't know if it was the same judge that heard your case, but it's one of these judges She handpicked what she wanted to hear. How does that? Oh, yeah? Yeah, I mean that's just the way it is in a national security case Everything's classified and so so courtroom rules are different than they are in any other case in fact we had made a motion to declassify 70 different documents that I needed to defend myself and The judge we had blocked off a day and a half for the hearings and we walked in and the judge said

[42:08] I'm gonna make this very simple and very quick. I'm denying all 70 motions And that was the end of it and we looked at each other and started walking out and I said to my lawyer What just happened? And he said we just lost the case. That's what happened Like how do we defend you? Well, how do we defend you if we're not allowed to present any evidence, right? And then there was one point where where we did have evidence to present and And The prosecution became almost distraught that I was going to be allowed to

[42:44] To present this evidence and so they asked for an in-camera Conversation with the judge well in camera conversations. That means that means without both sides being present they're normally prohibited in In court proceedings, but because it was a national security proceeding she allowed it So my attorneys and I sat at the table while the prosecutors went into the judges chambers with the judge They came out 10 or 15 minutes later and the judge reversed herself and denied my motion

[43:16] to allow evidence into Into the hearing. I have no idea what they said in there They could have said that I was a space man, you know from another galaxy here I have no idea and and the court rules say I don't have a right to know what they said and neither do my attorneys How is this even possible because because they're crimes against the country? I guess right? Yeah, the thing is is I was never convicted of any of those crimes all those charges were dismissed I mean you you mentioned I was charged with three counts of espionage

[43:49] I hadn't committed espionage and they knew I hadn't and they ended up dropping all of those charges But by then the damage was already done one of the tactics that the justice department uses is is something called charge stacking Where they'll charge you with one my case five different felonies Well, they they knew I hadn't committed those felonies But what they do is they wait until you go bankrupt They wait until you're a million dollars in in debt to your attorneys and then they come back and they offer to To dismiss all the charges but one if you just take a plea to make the thing go away

[44:20] So it's not an issue of justice. It's an economic decision You take a plea just to make this thing go away You know they offered me they offered me 30 months in which case I would do 23 Or if I wanted to roll the dice, I was facing 45 years And I knew because pro-publica had just come out with a study right in the midst of my trial That the federal government wins 98.2 of its cases So knowing I had a 1.8 chance of winning

[44:50] You know why why would I not take the deal? Yeah Um, okay, so I want you to talk about your books, but that yeah, it's it doesn't happen happen in a moment. Uh Truman on cia now. This is interesting and this was in that same interview Uh that I heard you give in denver um What truman signed the cia act? Right, is that right? National security act. Yeah, the national security act of 1947 And he later is quoted as sending a letter to the washington post basically stating

[45:26] That it was one of the worst decisions. Is this right of his presidency? Yeah, uh, you know, that's really interesting harry truman didn't really understand Everything that he was signing that day Truman had told jade grehoover in the months leading up to passage of the national security act of 1947 That the cia once created would become a division of the fbi and that's why Hoover supported the bill's passage because he thought he was going to be the head of both the fbi and the cia

[46:03] Well in the final language the cia was created as an independent entity And that was the genesis of of the bureaucratic friction between the fbi and the cia, but But within, you know, three years the cia had practically gone rogue The first thing that the cia did literally the first covert operation that the cia ever carried out Was to steal the italian elections of 1947 um by um By planting newspaper articles

[46:36] That just eviscerated the italian communist party and then by financing the christian democratic conservatives So it was that It was that illegal really intervention in a foreign election that got the cia started And it only got out worse by 1953 We were involved in iran and and in the dominican republic and in southern africa and all over the place Uh-huh interesting There's so i don't know if you know, but my so my my mother's british. So i have british family and then my

[47:12] father I'm fifth generation californian and my father's family arrived originally in kebek in 1640 from france And then san francisco in the 1890s. So i kind of look at I look at history from those two lenses if you will and i'm always kind of making sure fresh branches can grow on The tree if that makes any sense. And so i'm i'm thinking okay. Hmm. Is there any type of

[47:48] international influence on um shaping uh the construction or an organization of the cia, but that's interesting how you're talking about that italian kind of influence or policy shifts, um Very curious any comments of what i just said there No, i think you're exactly right and you have to remember too that the cia's predecessor organization

[48:18] The office of strategic services os s was really a group of Badasses who were parachuting behind nazi and italian fascist lines in the second world war and blowing up bridges and Meeting up with freedom fighters and it was a completely hands-on paramilitary organization Well that changed in 1947 you os s went away in 45 and then those those guys who had been the core of os s Were the ones who who formed the new cia with passage of the national security act

[48:52] So when they first started it wasn't this giant bureaucracy with Analysts and scientists and admins and you know operations people It was just a group of these guys who had just finished fighting world war two But doing it in plain clothes Up in the mountains somewhere with with these freedom fighters It took them a little while to get into the mindset of a bureaucracy by 1947 it was still so early I mean the agency was just months old Um, the idea was just to try to i'm gonna make up a word here civilian eyes

[49:27] What they had already been doing during the second world war Got it got it and i mean this is totally different from The fbi the fbi Totally completely different from the fbi the fbi had been around since the 1920s um It was just called uh, what first it was called the office of investigation And then it became the bureau of investigation then the federal bureau of investigation But uh, j. Edgar Hoover was actually there at its founding. He was the director the first director

[49:57] And lasted 19 yeah from 1927 to 19 whatever it was 72 or 73. He died Uh, I guess it was 72 so Hoover the fbi was was Hoover It was it was created in his in his image And he was the only director that organization knew and then here you are 20 years into it I mean 20 years In a job people are already thinking of retiring and that's when the cia is created He wanted to take that over too. He couldn't and then still had another 25 years to go

[50:32] Who pressed who pressed that for me formulation of the cia where where did that really come from? Um, it came from conservatives on capitol hill both democrats and republicans And and it came out of Of the anti-communist fervor of the post war era You know, it was only another year later that the house on american activities committee in the senate investigations committee were created and so A lot of a lot of policy makers not policy makers but members of congress

[51:05] Believed that we needed some sort of formal official governmental agency to counter communism And that's really how it started. Okay, that makes sense um Okay, so quickly uh Describe these these three books that uh that that you've written and and that are now available On amazon i'm assuming uh describe those were were quickly uh for for us sure Sure thing my first book uh came out in 2010 It's called the reluctant spy my secret life in the cia's war on terror

[51:37] It's published by random house and um did quite well. I made number five on the washington post bestsellers list I was very proud of it. Um, my second book i wrote in prison Uh, it's called doing time like a spy how the cia taught me to survive and thrive in prison And i actually won the penn first amendment award for that book It was very well received well regarded And um, it's still out there on amazon it came out in may I had another book that came out in june that i wrote with joe hickman a former guantanamo guard

[52:09] Um since i captured up as a beta and then joe took custody of up as a beta at guantanamo We wrote it together and it's called um the convenient terrorist two whistleblowers stories of Of lies deceit so i forget exactly the rest of the they changed it the last minute I don't remember the subtitle, but uh, but it's the convenient terrorist Okay, cool. Thank you john and and those are all on amazon. Do you have a website? Yeah, I have a website the first book um is is no longer in print

[52:41] It's in print and paperback. I I own all the existing hardbacks and I sell them through my website Which is john curiaku.com john k i r i a k o u dot com Um and I I sign them and dedicate them however you want And then uh doing time like a spy and the convenient terrorist are both on amazon They're both still in print hardback, uh the paperback On my second book is coming out in the spring And the paperback for the third book is not yet scheduled

[53:13] John what's your vision uh for the next five years? How do you envision Keeping america honest How do you contribute to that? I mean you've already built a legacy That that's such a hard question. I mean it At first blush it ought to be an easy question, right? Yeah, it ought to be we need real True congressional oversight of the intelligence community, but the truth is we're never going to get that What we have on the intelligence committees, and I mean both democrats and republicans

[53:47] Is not overseers but cheerleaders And there's nobody up there with the guts to keep the cia honest You know don't forget as americans the cia works for us right? We own the cia's information, right that information is owned by the american people And the cia has to report to us Through our elected representatives, and they don't do that and our elected representatives don't object So what we need to do

[54:17] Is we need to demand oversight we need to demand of our elected representatives that they do their jobs and make sure that the cia and other intelligence community members operate within the confines of the law another thing that I push on my program is Keeping the federal reserve honest and that's I mean that's a whole other discussion and and and perhaps at another time if that's something you want to Talk about but you know that's you know, that's basically the bank that's funding the government

[54:50] And I don't really know how that stacks up to funding the cia, but You know transparency on all levels, and it's not just our elected officials, but it's also those organization systems The financing systems that that are that are that are financing Uh the way that uh the the the way that this government operates, um That's yeah. Yeah, I agree with you for example Why why has there never been an audit of the fed?

[55:21] Right. I mean everybody else gets on literally everybody else in government gets audited. So why isn't the fed audited? It just doesn't make any sense, and I don't think the government has ever given the american people the option That question right now exactly right started to cut you off That's exactly right John quickly let me ask you a question, dude. So um, I've had I've had on my show Uh a little while ago. I'm not sure if it was before you. I've actually had two guests that are ventures

[55:53] And I just want your opinion. Um, it's not what you do, but I just want your opinion as an as a human being And and as a citizen of the world. Um, so Ken Caldera is a scientist. He's a fellow at stanford and he's presented to um, he's presented to congress Uh, something called the carbon cycle report and he was a lead author on that essentially trying to get um, trying to get uh, washington a little more, uh, uh Comprehensive in there in their action and in in in rulings to uh, to curb greenhouse gases to try to fight climate change

[56:30] Um, yeah on a totally other side of that kind of spectrum Is a guy named dane wiggington. Now it just so happens. I spoke to dane yesterday and dane is good friends with a guy named I believe it's john ship Uh, dane said he's a former cia, uh, just like you and that he came out Sorry, sorry, kevin kevin ship kevin. Okay. Um, and so dane is is a friend his friends with kevin And I don't know kevin's story. I don't know what what what he's done. Oh, yeah I actually spoke to kevin today. Oh, you did

[57:00] Yeah, kevin was a highly respected, uh uh office of security, uh officer at the cia and uh, He's got a terrible story. He was he was assigned domestically and the house that the cia rented for him um, had a very dangerous mold infestation and uh And the cia told him to like it or lump it and there were some real health consequences for for kevin and for his family When he complained he was treated like a criminal because he was a whistleblower

[57:31] And then when he went to the congressional oversight committees Then they put him on the blacklist and he ended up paying for it with his career Oh, my goodness. I had no idea Um, okay, so maybe that's why dane knows him. I don't know the premise of the relationship, but what dane does Uh, have you heard of dane wigington? Are you familiar with dane? No, I sure don't I sure don't know So dane's got a house in northern california. Shasta county He was in bechtel. Uh, he he worked in the I think the solar power

[58:06] Side of bechtel for a number of years and he bought his home and he put solar panels on this roof And he's and he's realizing the uptake a major decline in the uptake of solar activity And so his research is is is exposing Um, what's called geoengineering and the side effects of geoengineering You know, I had ken talk about that very briefly again ken's based at stanford. He's a fellow there And and and so dane's angle and ken doesn't talk about the side effects He does it doesn't does he just looks at the the data and the facts and he and he writes about it But but dane comes out and says hey look, you know part of this geoengineering

[58:39] Which is essentially an attempt to reflect those sun rays back in the atmosphere at a curb Um curb with fossil fuels and in the greenhouse gases Um, he's dane says look I've got days He's got he's got a lot of people that are reading what is what is researching But he says he says look part of that is spraying these aerosols and emitting Illuminum particles in the atmosphere, which which is happening And he says the barium is a side effect that is weakening for instance Roots in trees systems and so making them much more prone to being incendiary and burning

[59:15] But what is and this is again It's just I had nothing to do with with with any I'm just I'm just saying is a climate change is affecting all of this And I'm just looking at your opinion. Is this is this something that that that uh that you have an opinion on You know, I I apologize to you Yeah, because I I really don't I really don't know the issue. Yeah, um That I I apologize. I feel like I can't really speak intelligently on it. No, I didn't I didn't expect I didn't expect you to um, but but I thought I'd I'd just throw it out there because

[59:50] Anyway, I for some reason I wanted to throw it out there. Um John dude, I I've got to uh, I've got to close out this session. I I am so grateful you came back on the program, man It's my pleasure. I'm happy to do it. Thanks for the invitation um Ladies and gentlemen, john kariaku Check out his books go to his website and are you also on twitter? Yeah, I'm on twitter and facebook uh, john kariaku at john kariaku. Very cool John thanks for coming on the program and have a great day, dude

[1:00:23] My pleasure. Thank you. Same to you Ladies and gentlemen, john kariaku uh That guy is like beyond super cool. Um, if you want, um any type of A legend to use and and and i'm not talking about, um an alexander the great type legend i'm talking about a legend like a standard or a beacon if you

[1:00:56] want any type of um Legend to map your Existence or your approach to um Being a member of society What john stands for his ethics His morals Are second to none and this country is incredibly

[1:01:29] Incredibly lucky to to have Men like john kariaku in it my opinion uh This has been your four o'clock special edition of discussions on winwood radio. I will cut to a short break And we will be back with the five o'clock edition
