Ed Martin and the pardon file
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Asked by a viewer what the public could actually do to help him obtain a pardon, John Kiriakou gave a specific and mundane answer, and then reported what he had heard back through a mutual acquaintance.

The ask

"To tell you the truth," Kiriakou said, "an email or a letter to the US pardon attorney, Ed Martin, would be very helpful."

Pressed on which was better, he came down for physical mail: "I think snail mail is better." Ted Rall elaborated the method on air, look up the mailing address, use a formal form of address, print it out, sign it yourself and drop it in a mailbox with an old-fashioned stamp, and Kiriakou thanked him.

His reasoning was about cumulative visibility rather than persuasion: "honestly, if they got a trickle of letters every day, I think it might ," and he broke off there.

The message from the desk

What he said next indicates the letters were already arriving. A friend of Kiriakou's who knows Martin telephoned him "to say, 'Come on, man. You got to pardon John Kiriakou.'"

Martin's reported reply was: "You're the third person today to call me about him. Just tell him to relax. His file is literally on my desk."

Kiriakou did not take much comfort from it. Rall observed that relaxing is easy advice from someone who is not the one waiting for a pardon, and Kiriakou agreed: "Yeah, that's right." His closing line on the subject was a hope rather than an expectation: "from Ed's lips to God's ears."

Context

The exchange came at the end of a segment in which Kiriakou had also described the alternative legal route available to him, a writ of coram nobis, and had set out the limits of his own patience, that if no pardon comes from this president, "I give up."

He had opened the same broadcast by saying he had taken coffee with a cabinet member days earlier and been told to be patient, and that there was nothing further he could do to make his case.

The viewer who asked the question added that in their opinion Kiriakou should receive a presidential medal of freedom; Rall agreed, and Kiriakou thanked them both.

See also

- Kiriakou pardon request
- The writ of coram nobis
- Coffee With A Cabinet Member
- Ted Rall
