Title: John Kiriakou: The CIA Whistleblower Who Went to Prison for Telling the Truth
Show: Scott Michael Nathan
Date: 2026-01-21
URL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WaaIoliCdHc
Duration: 59:55

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[00:00] John, what do you say to people from the, you know, current and former intelligence community, people that call you a trader? What do you say to them? >> Nobody calls me a trader. >> No. >> In all ser in all seriousness, my detractors are all either dead or retired. And this new generation at the agency acknowledges me as a whistleblower. Dozens of them have reached out to me for advice. And listen, I said from the very beginning, I was on the right side

[00:30] of history. [music] Bad decisions, bad decisions, [music] bad decisions. >> Welcome back to the Bad Decisions podcast, where we lead not with celebrity, but with story. John Kiryaku was recruited into the CIA by a graduate school professor and spent his first eight years as a Middle East analyst specializing in Iraq. Following 9/11, he

[01:02] was named chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan, where he led raids on al-Qaeda safe houses and captured Abu Zuba in March 2002. John worked at the CIA from 1990 to 2004 and received numerous awards, including 10 exceptional performance awards. CIA officials offered to train Jon in enhanced interrogation techniques, but he refused. After leaving the agency, John became the first US official to publicly confirm water boarding was used and called it torture. John Kuryaku,

[01:33] welcome to the show. >> Thanks so much for having me. Good to be with you. >> Thank you. So, let's I always like to start with origin stories. Walk us through how your professor recruited you into the CIA. What was that conversation like and when did you realize this was serious? >> Well, I was taking a grad school course at George Washington University called the psychology of leadership and um it was taught by uh Dr. Gerald Post, an eminent psychiatrist, author of dozens of books on the mostly on the

[02:05] psychology of terrorists. And so, uh, he gave us an assignment where we had to shadow our bosses for a week and then write a psychological profile of our bosses. And, uh, I was working at a labor union in Washington at the time called the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. And I worked for a guy that I was actually a little bit afraid of. He was just a big mean, loud, old school union organizer. And um partway through the week uh we

[02:36] had an argument and I uh I called him a racist, which he was. >> Mhm. >> And he he balled up his hands to his fists to to punch me. I put up my hands to block what I thought would be the inevitable, you know, punch to the face. And then he shouted that his penis was bigger than mine. And I quit on the spot. I said, "You know what? You're nuts. I quit." and I walked. So I wrote my paper and it it's not just, you know,

[03:06] John telling the story of how he quit. It was this was a serious psychological profile. We had done a lot of reading and um and so it was very heavily footnoted. I submitted the paper to Dr. Post and a week later he sent it back to me. He gave me an A and he wrote in the margin, "Please see me after class." So I went to see him after class. He closed the office door and he said, "Look, I'm not really a professor here. I'm a CIA officer undercover as a professor here,

[03:38] and I'm looking for people who might fit into the CIA's culture. I think you would fit into the CIA's culture. Would you like to be a CIA officer?" And I had a second to think about it and I said, "Sure, yeah, I would. I wanted to I wanted to go into public service. I wanted to see the world and you just kind of laid it there in front of me. >> How interesting. Um >> I should add that's illegal now. You

[04:08] can't do that. >> You can't recruit students or you can't uh uh recruit people from the private sector or what? >> No, no, no. You can do both. You can't do it secretly behind the scenes. We have something since 1993 called the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. So the the playing field has to be level. It can't just be one, you know, white guy choosing other white guys behind closed doors to to, you know, go to the CIA. And so it's far less sexy. You have to

[04:39] go to a recruiter on a college campus or you have to go to www.cia.gov and click apply. It's far less sexy now. >> Interesting. John, you've said in the past that the CIA looks for candidates who have psychopathic tendencies but not actually psychopaths. What's the distinction? >> Sociopathic. >> Oh, sociopathic tendencies. Okay. Sorry. What's the distinction between a sociopathic tendencies and and a sociopath? >> Sure. Sociopath is someone who's unable to feel remorse or guilt, just unable.

[05:10] And usually those people, if they can keep the the sort of criminal element of it in check, they actually usually rise up to the tops of their of their careers as CEOs and COOs because they're comfortable doing it on the backs of the people around them. People who have sociopathic tendencies do have consciences. They do feel regret and remorse. they do feel empathy, but they are willing to break the law or

[05:43] bend the law if they believe it's for the, you know, greater good. And so I was perfectly happy to break into somebody's house and plant a bug or install a camera if I believed that that was a terrorist. I was perfectly happy to break laws and, you know, commit espionage while I was overseas. But I'm a believer in the rule of law in the United States and torture is illegal. It's always been illegal, at least since the since the Second World

[06:14] War. And and that's where I drew the line. >> It's very interesting stuff. Um, you know, there there seems to it it seems the job does seem to require a bit of moral flexibility. Um, >> sure. So what was it about? And so Abu Zubeda was was waterboarded what 80s something times. >> Yeah. 83 times. >> And you concluded that uh that that

[06:49] enhanced interrogation doesn't work. But but uh but I've read that that that what good intel did come out of him. >> Oh yeah. Great intel came out of him. Not not as a result of the waterboarding. >> Break it down. >> I say this all the time. I Yeah, I I say this all the time that it's it's like a kick in my gut to compliment the FBI. It really is. But interrogation is something that the FBI is really good at and they've always been good at it. They've been interrogating prisoners

[07:21] professionally since the Nuremberg trials. And the way they do it is they establish a rapport with the subject. They establish a relationship. Sometimes it takes days, maybe weeks, maybe months, who knows? But eventually the subject is going to open up. And Ali Sufan, an FBI agent who was interrogating Abu Zabeda, got him to open up. And he gave us a couple of things that were dramatic in their helpfulness. Number

[07:53] one, for the very first time, he gave us the al-Qaeda wiring diagram. We had no idea what al-Qaeda looked like as an organization. We knew Osama bin Laden was the number one. I zawahi was the number two. The number three was, you know, a little more gray. And then we didn't have any idea what the rest of it looked like. And Abu Zubeda gave us that. We we were able to to disrupt future attacks because Ali Sufan was able to get this from Abu Zuba just in the course of a conversation.

[08:25] The other thing that Abu Zuba gave us was the name Khaled Shikh Muhammad. We had never heard the name before. We knew that there was a very bad guy out there using the Nom Dear Mkhtar. We knew that Mkhtar was planning terrible catastrophic terrorist attacks. We had no idea what his real name was. And then when Abu Zubed told us it was Khaled Shake Muhammad, we had never heard of the guy. Uh the problem with torture techniques is that sure

[08:56] eventually the the subject of the torture is going to give up the information that you want. that he's going to tell you so much about so many things, most of it being nonsense, just to get you to stop torturing him. >> Stop hurting him. >> And it's going to Yeah, it's going to take your analyst 6 months to to separate the wheat from the chaff. And by then, the next bomb has gone off, the next operation has taken place, and it's just too late. Besides the fact that it's illegal,

[09:29] >> how much time did you do in prison for this, John? 23 months. >> Tell me about that if you would. >> Yeah. At sentencing, I was sentenced in the Eastern District of Virginia, uh, which is also known as the Espionage Court because it's the the home district of the CIA, of the Pentagon, of the Department of Homeland Security, and countless intelligence and defense contractors. So my attorneys asked the sentencing

[09:59] judge to send me to a minimum security work camp. She agreed. The prosecution had no objection, but the CIA did. And so in the months between I was sentenced in October and when I went to prison in February, they made sure that I was sent to an actual prison with the double concertina wire fences and the armed guards and the, you know, the big water tower and the whole nine yards. Um, it took me about four

[10:29] days to get access to a phone once I got there. And I called my lead attorney and I said, "Hey, they put me in the actual prison with the mafia dons and the drug kingpins and the pedophiles. What do I do?" And he said, "My god, well, we could file a motion, but it'll be two years before we get a hearing and you'll be home by then." He said, "Buddy, I'm sorry. You're going to have to tough it out." And so I decided at really at that moment that I was trained for this.

[11:02] I was going to use my CIA training to make sure that I remained at the top of the social heap and kept myself safe. And so I began by creating strategic alliances beginning with the Aryans and the Italians. And um it was not difficult time. Uh the the worst part of it is the monotony. It's just it's Groundhog Day. Day after day after day,

[11:35] >> but never had any problems. >> Did you read? Did you write? How did you pass the time? >> Uh yes to both. Uh on the very first day that I was there, I I had only been in prison for like four hours and uh there was mail call and I got a letter from a lady in Ringold, Georgia. I didn't know who this woman was, but she sent me a nice card and there was a letter inside the card and I thought, "Wow, that was so nice of this woman, a complete stranger to me." But she took time out of her day to tell me good luck and she's thinking about me. And I I

[12:07] decided that day that I was going to respond to every piece of mail that I got, not realizing I was going to answer 7,000 letters from 675 different people. >> But I did. I also wrote a book in Longhand called Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison. Um that won two literary awards. I won one of the big four. I won I won the pen first amendment award which along with the pen falner the Pulitzer and the Edgar Alan Poe is one of the big four literary

[12:38] prizes and I won the forward reviews memoir of the year and um and I read voraciously uh I was there 23 months I read more than a hundred books and uh you know just counted down the days. John, what do you say to people from the, you know, current and former intelligence community, people that call you a trader? What do you say to them? >> Nobody calls me a traitor. >> No. >> In all ser in all seriousness, my detractors are all either dead or

[13:10] retired. And this new generation at the agency acknowledges me as a whistleblower. Dozens of them have reached out to me for advice. And listen, I said from the very beginning, I was on the right side of history. >> I agree. >> The CIA's leader leadership was not. And it's taken a few years, a decade, but the agency as a body has come around to my position as I knew it would.

[13:41] >> Agreed. >> John, tell us about the farm. What surprised you most in your CIA training that you didn't expect from the movies? >> Oh. Ah, none of the movies are accurate. So, I really I really >> What's What's the closest? >> The closest is The Recruit, >> which came out in like 200 four, 2002 something. Um, good movie. Aluchccino's in it. Um, the only thing

[14:13] that they exaggerated was, um, in the movie they beat him and they didn't beat us in training. It was hard. It was physical, but they didn't beat us. That that film came the closest. Most other films are nonsense. >> I was kind of hoping you would say Sakario. >> Uh, no, I was okay. But most most CIA people hate CIA films. I was I was the script consultant on one. It was a John Travolta film called uh From Paris with

[14:46] Love. >> Okay. And it was so absurd. I was embarrassed actually to be associated with it. There was one scene where Travolta is he's in Paris. He's been sent out by Langley and he's going through the streets of of Paris in a limousine and he's standing half out of the the sunroof on a limousine and he's just opening fire with machine guns in both hands and he's selling cocaine and you know it's like

[15:18] come on you guys, >> right? >> But most of them are just just awful. Just awful. >> Got you. So I certainly remember where I was. I was I was a new transplant to LA. Where were you on 911 and what was the immediate response inside the agency in the days after? >> Yeah, I was in I was in headquarters on 911. Um I was uh I Uh-huh. I was uh I had a 9:00 meeting scheduled with Condisa Rice. I was going with Kofheer Black who was the head of the

[15:48] counterterrorism center and it was on a very quaint now very specific little issue related to um Greek terrorism and uh the driver called me to tell me that he was ready to pick us up. This was like 8:15 or 8:10 and um I walked over to Kofheer's office and these are the days before you could watch TV on your computer. So his secretary had a little TV on her desk and it was on and

[16:19] one of the towers of the World Trade Center was burning. And I said, "What happened to the World Trade Center?" And she said, "A plane flew into it." And I said, "You know, that happened once before in the 1930s. A plane flew into the Empire State Building, a bomber, but it it was pouring down rain and it was foggy then. It's so crystal clear today. How can you not see that you're flying into the World Trade Center?" And just as I spoke the words, the second plane flew in. And then she turned to me over her shoulder like this and she said,

[16:51] "Did you see that or did I imagine it?" And then it was just kind of a quiet chaos. [sighs] We had to be ordered to evacuate. Everybody evacuated. Somebody said, "You know, we should probably assume that one of these planes is headed here." Nobody wanted to evacuate. Finally, one of those CIA policemen, the CIA has its own police force, um, he came in and said, "If you don't evacuate, you'll be arrested." So, everybody evacuated. I ended up abandoning my car halfway

[17:23] between headquarters and my apartment just cuz I couldn't I couldn't make it any further. I walked the rest of the way. I saw the deputy national security adviser walking. He had crossed the Teddy Roosevelt bridge and he was walking and he had no shoes. And that sticks in my mind as one of the most significant things of that day. Like this was really a catastrophe when the deputy national security adviser of the United States abandons his office, runs for his life, and leaves his shoes.

[17:56] It's >> crazy. >> So I went to my my then girlfriend, she later became my wife, but my girlfriend and I went to the roof of my building. We watched the Pentagon burn for a little while and um I said we should try to we should try to donate blood or something, but the lines were so long. It was like a 20 22 24-hour line. And finally I said, "This is ridiculous. We we got to get back to work." She was also a CIA officer. And so we walked back to my car, drove across the median back to

[18:28] headquarters, and then I stayed there for the next 4 days. Well, you became chief of counterterrorist operations in Pakistan almost immediately after 9/11. How quickly did that happen and what was the mandate at the time? >> Well, that's that's a good question. Like everybody in the building, I just kept volunteering, constantly volunteering. You got to send me to Afghanistan. You got to send me to Afghanistan. I was one of the few people who spoke fluent Arabic at the time, and I figured, who's interrogating these people? You got to send me to

[18:59] Afghanistan. And then I ran into a colleague in the hall who I hadn't seen in six weeks and I said, "Where have you been?" And he says, "Afghanistan." I said, "Yeah, what are you doing in Afghanistan?" He said, "I'm killing people. What do you think I'm doing?" And then I it dawned on me, "They don't need interrogators. They don't need linguists. They're just killing people." So I angrily went into the deputy director of counterterrorism. I went into his office. I said, "Look," he he and I were old friends. I said, "If you

[19:30] don't send me to Afghanistan right now, I'm going to walk straight to Exxon with my Arabic, and I'm not looking back." He's like, "All right, all right, take it easy. Can you be uh chief of uh counterterrorism offic?" I said, "Yes. When?" He said, "Tomorrow." I said, "Yes." "How long do you want me to go?" I said, he said, "I I don't know, as long as it needs to be." So the next day I got in the plane and flew to Pakistan and I had no idea if this was going to be 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, no

[20:03] idea. >> What was your state of mind? Was it blind rage rage or anger or just pragmatism? >> It was it was anger. And I can't tell you how many people kind of whispered to me, "Kill them all." >> As I was getting ready to leave. Um, but then once I arrived, pragmatism set in because it's not just like they're they're not just like carrying membership cards that say al-Qaeda. >> Yeah. And they're not in uniforms. Yeah. >> Right. They're not in uniforms. You got

[20:33] to you have to find them. You have to hunt them. And so the chase was on. I came up with a couple of ideas that I was very proud of. You know, rather than guard the border, just pull everybody off the border. let them come in cuz they're going to seek out a safe house with other Arabs. They're going to make a mistake. They always do, whether it's by using a cell phone or going into an email account or, you know, speaking to the wrong person in the marketplace, whatever. And then we'll be able to catch a bunch of them at once rather than one or two at a time on the border.

[21:06] And that ended up working very well. What would you estimate the the the climate of Islamist sleeper cells to be like in 2025? And how are we watching them? >> I'm going to answer that question with a with a story, >> please. After we caught up, about a week after we caught up, um I drove up to Pashau with a guy from the embassy. He was actually a detective from the Port Authority of New York and

[21:37] New Jersey police department and he was on loan to the FBI. Awesome guy named Tommy McCale. So Tommy and I went up to Pashauer to do this little thing. And on the way back, it was night. It was like 10 or 11 at night. We drove past the only remaining and functioning Taliban embassy in the world. And he said, he said, "Look at this. They have such nerve, these guys still having a functioning embassy."

[22:10] And he said, "We should go in there and we should steal everything that's not bolted to the floor." And I laughed and I said, "Yeah, that would be awesome." And then I thought, "No, you know what? That's exactly what we should do. That's exactly what we should do." went back to head went back to the embassy and I sent a cable to headquarters request permission to raid the Taliban embassy in the middle of the night and steal everything. And the next day they said permission granted. So we put a team together. We

[22:43] requisitioned three vans from the embassy motor. We drove up 2:00 a.m. We busted down the door and we stole literally everything in that building. computers, cell phones, paper files. We filled almost all three of the vans with paper files. >> Wow. >> So, we took everything back back to the embassy. We had to store it in the hallways. There was so much stuff. And then the FBI had flown in a a group of computer uh people to just, you know,

[23:14] mirror image all of the the uh hard >> drives. Yeah. Anyway, about about five or six days later, Tommy comes up to my office and he says, "Hey, something disturbing uh is in these files. We just found it." I went downstairs and it was a file folder of telephone bills, all in English, and they showed dozens upon dozens of calls from the Taliban embassy to numbers all across the United States,

[23:46] Buffalo, New York. Bethesda, Maryland, Kansas City, um, uh, Estus Park, uh, Colorado, all across America. And then they abruptly stopped on September 10th, and then they slowly started up again on September 16th. So I cabled headquarters. I said, "Be advised. We just found this file folder, etc., etc." They said, "Good catch. Make sure that the FBI gets the originals. send copies to us and give copies to the

[24:18] packs. So that's what we did with the idea being there appear to be or at least there appears to be the possibility of sleeper cells all across America. >> So um >> they never they never looked at the files. They never opened the box. And when I finally asked an FBI agent two years later, "What about all those those phone bills?" He said, "Yeah, you know what? We couldn't find a Poshtu translator." I said, "They were in

[24:50] English. That's how I knew they were phone bills. I'm I don't speak Poshtu." And so, nothing was ever done with those files. We have no idea if if they had been indicating sleeper cells. And then, uh, a little while later, after I got back to the United States, um, in the late spring, I was up in New York with a carload of FBI agents. We were driving down First Avenue and um and one of them pointed a pointed at a um a storefront

[25:20] and he said, "You see that storefront? That's the headquarters of Hezbollah in New York. Very dangerous." I said, "Well, then why the fuck don't you raid it and grab everybody if they're so dangerous? What's the matter with you guys?" >> Yeah. >> So, the answer to your question is we don't have any idea how many sleeper cells there are. There are a bunch. I'll tell you that. The FBI just arrested a group of them a few days ago uh in the Inland Empire in the California desert. But is it because there is just one or

[25:51] are there five or 10 or a hundred? We don't have any idea. >> Well, I think I think we're going to have to get get uh uh get get up to snuff pretty quickly with uh with what's going on in the world. >> So, let me ask you something. Is Islamism rising, stabilizing, or winning? It's not looking good here or in Europe. >> I think it's more um amorphous uh than it it seems. Um it is certainly

[26:22] on the Wayne in places like the Levant for example or even Afghanistan, but it's certainly on the upswing in the Sahel uh in parts of East Asia like like the southern Philippines for example. Syria is very dangerous. Sudan is very dangerous. Somalia will always be dangerous. So, it just kind of es and flows and moves. It's almost like playing whack-a-ole. Sure, you're going to you're going to

[26:52] stomp one out and then another one's going to pop up somewhere else. >> Yeah. I mean, what I'm most concerned about is what's happening here uh from sea to shining sea. >> What do you think the horizon looks like? I think we're always going to be under threat here because that's sort of the crown jewel of terrorism, isn't it? >> Yeah. >> To carry out a terrorist attack in the United States. >> Mhm. [sighs] >> So, h how do you think the agencies are

[27:22] working now? >> Oh, we know that the agencies are working far far better together, far more closely together. It wasn't until 2009 that the CIA and FBI computer systems were compatible with one another. >> Really, >> that's that's how deep the animosity was. That's how that's how difficult the institutional relationships were. It took eight years after the 9/11 attacks just for the computers to be able to send messages to one another.

[27:53] >> Wow. >> Let me ask you this. Do you think it's too late for Europe? That's that's a tough one. Um, in some ways, parts of Western Europe. Yeah. Um, the French sort of invited it by colonizing Algeria and then through bad military decisions radicalizing the population.

[28:23] Um, the Brits, same thing. You know, when you're a colonial power and then you spin your your colonies off, you sort of have to let them come in if they want to come in. They are British subjects. >> Yeah. >> And so, um, you know, and even some of the countries that take refugees like the Netherlands for example or Denmark or even Sweden, parted Sweden. >> Yeah. especially in the south of Sweden, they're they're the Swedes have generally gotten it right. immigration and and and the influx of refugees

[28:57] um have pushed the Swedish electorate to the right, but the Swedes have made good use of ethnic Arab um refugees, Swedish citizens who become police officers and then are able to liaz with the refugee communities in Arabic or Pashto or Udo or whatever and keep things peaceful. The Brits and the French haven't had that good fortune. >> What role does social media play in

[29:28] terrorism and counterterrorism now? >> Oh, I think social media plays an increasingly sophisticated role in terrorism. you know, going back to the San Bernardino attacks uh several years ago, they were communicating with each other through gaming systems and social media, uh in in the the fantastic Israeli uh Netflix series FA um in the final season, they only communicated with each other operationally

[30:00] through gaming systems and social media. >> That was >> and they did that because that's fascinating. Listen, if any of your listeners are interested in a in a show that can't possibly be any closer to reality, it's that one. >> I love I love that show. >> Me, too. Me, too. >> So, uh yeah, I I've heard mixed uh opinions from you on working with Mossad, but uh explain to me what it was like. >> Yeah, I'm not sure my opinions are

[30:31] really that mixed. Um, they are probably the best intelligence service in the world. I'll give them that. But they actively and aggressively spy on the United States. Uh, they are spread out all across the country trying trying to steal defense secrets, trying to recruit Americans and um and are sometimes successful. and um they they just don't treat, you know, on a day-to-day basis, they don't treat CIA officers that they're supposed

[31:03] to be working with and liazing with respect. And so, as a result, I can honestly tell you that in all my years at the CIA, I never met anybody who enjoyed working with the Israelis. Not a person. >> Got you. So, back to whistleblowers for a moment. It just occurs to me. So, I'm curious where you think the line is. Um, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, heroes or villains? >> Oh, I think both heroes. Um, the there's

[31:36] a legal definition of whistleblowing in the United States. It's bringing to light any evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, illegality, or threats to the public health or public safety. And motivation is irrelevant in the law. So, waste, fraud, abuse, or threats to the illegality or threats to the public health or public safety. Um, I wouldn't have gone about it the way Ed and Julian did, but what they did was to reveal crimes and so I think that they

[32:07] performed a public service. Besides the fact that Julian's not even an American citizen, so charging him like accusing him of treason, like treason, he's not an American. That's not treason. >> I always thought that was kind of silly. >> It's like, you committed treason against the Germans. Well, I'm not German, so I don't care. Let me ask you this. What What if the West continues to prioritize moral performance over survival? I I I think the whole basis of that

[32:38] question is wrong. It It doesn't have to be an eitheror proposition. No, you don't have to be an outlaw to protect your country. We have laws for a reason. And listen, if you want to torture people, God bless. Change the law and say, "Listen, I like torture. I want to torture people. So, I want the law to say I can torture people." Just be honest about it. >> It's as simple as that. But at the same time, you can't be this shining city on a hill like Ronald Reagan said, this

[33:10] shining beacon of hope for human rights and civil rights and civil liberties. Like, don't don't yank people's chains like that. Just be what you want to be. And if you want to be the country that tortures people because you think it's going to make you safer, then be that country. >> What does make us safer? >> Good intelligence. treating people with respect even when we disagree with them, even when they're not here in the United States. Treating people, treating countries equally with

[33:41] respect. One of the things that I learned very quickly when I was in Pakistan was that among these young al-Qaeda fighters, they all told essentially the same story. They said that they were from isolated villages in their country. They were illiterate. They had no job training, like nothing. They could barely tie their own shoes. And they wanted to get married. They're 18, 19 years old. They want to get married. And

[34:14] they couldn't get married because no man would want his daughter to marry a guy who can't read, can't write, has no job skills, no future, and he lives in a village with 50 people. So the local imam said to them, "You don't want to stay in this village. You should go to Afghanistan and make jihad against the Americans and we'll pay you $300 a month. And if you're martyed, we'll give your parents a $500 martyrdom bonus." >> Christ. >> And they said fine, cuz they had nothing better going on. They couldn't find the

[34:46] United States on a map, >> right? >> And they had never read the Quran. So they didn't do this for religious purposes. They did it because their lives were so dire that they had nothing else. And so economic development and education are the two greatest weapons against terrorism. Now we're in a political situation now in the in the United States where we don't want to have anything that calls itself foreign aid. Right? And so we're

[35:18] stuck in this in this loop now where, you know, we're going to have to keep fighting them in these battlefield countries because we don't want to help develop their economies and, you know, and their education systems. It's tricky. [clears throat] What made you to decide to go on ABC News in 2007 and and and do that whistleblowing? Brian Ross from ABC News called me and told me that he had a source who said

[35:48] that I had tortured Abu Zuba. I said it was absolutely untrue. I was the only person who was kind to Abu Zuba. And he said, "Well, you can come on and defend yourself." I had no idea that was a reporter's trick. Um but then the president said twice that next week, he said that there was no torture. He we do not torture. He said, >> I remember. >> And the second thing is he alluded to the notion that >> there was there was torture, but it was because of a rogue CIA officer and that

[36:20] they were going to blame me. >> And so I decided I'm going to go on and I'm just going to tell the truth and I exposed the program. >> So how how was it first teed up to you before you rejected the the concept of enhanced interrogation? Oh, I was standing in the cafeteria in line and uh and a colleague of mine, a senior officer from the counterterrorism center came up to me very casually and said, "Oh," he goes, "Hey, I'm glad I ran into you. Do you want to be certified in the use of enhanced interrogation techniques?" I had never

[36:50] heard that term before. I said, "What's that mean, enhanced interrogation techniques?" And he said, "Uh, we're going to start getting rough with these guys." I said, "Well, what does that mean?" And then he explained these techniques. I said, 'Th that sounds like a torture program. He said, 'It's not a torture program. DOJ approved it and the president signed it. I said, I don't know. Let me let me think about it for an hour. Well, I went to the seventh floor, the executive floor of the CIA. There was a very senior, very, very

[37:21] senior officer there for whom I had worked in the Middle East 10 years earlier. And I asked his advice. He said, "Don't do it." So I went back downstairs. I said, "This is a torture program. I have a moral and ethical problem with it. I think it's illegal on top of it. I don't want any part of it." And so they they had actually approached 14 people and I was the only one who said no. What's the most important thing people don't understand about what you actually went to prison for?

[37:53] >> You know, I uh I was convicted of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1981. I confirmed the surname of a former colleague, a retired colleague. Um, the surname was never made public. Never. Nobody knows what the name was. Um, and people think that that's why I got prosecuted. Well, David Petraeus, when he was director of the CIA, revealed the names of 10 covert CIA operatives. He wasn't even charged. And

[38:24] Leon Panetta, the names of six covert operatives. He was never charged. So people say, "Well, you revealed somebody's name." Really? What was the name if I revealed it? What was that name? Oh, you don't know? Because nobody knows it was never revealed. >> Right. >> So people people need to understand that >> I was punished for blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program. That was my punishment. And they just scoured >> Yeah. They just scoured the law books looking for something to charge me with.

[38:55] And that was the hook that they found. I read, I don't know if it's true or not, but I read that you were told that you could get a Trump pardon for $2 million. Is that true? And if so, did it come about? And how did you respond? >> Well, no, of course it didn't come about. I haven't worked in 10 years except myself. >> I know. >> No, it was And that was on the front page of the New York Times. Rudy Giuliani tried to shake me down for $2 million. >> Really? That >> Oh, yeah. >> Tell me Tell me how that happened. >> I was one of six people. Yeah. So,

[39:29] a friend of mine said, "Hey, Giuliani, you know, Giuliani is so close to Trump. This is way back in in 2020. Uh, Giuliani is really close to Trump. You should try to get to Giuliani." And I said, "Well, I I I do have one path to Giuliani." So, I called this friend of mine and I said, "Hey, can you connect me with Giuliani?" And he said, "Yeah." So, um, so he did uh with one of Giuliani's aids. And um I told him what I was looking for and he said, "Actually, we're going to be in

[40:00] Washington on Tuesday. Why don't we get together for a drink at the Trump Hotel?" So we did, we got together. I was with my attorney and um and we're sitting there and I said, you know, so nice to meet you. You know, we shook hands and and then Giuliani is like, um, you like the Giants, New York Giants? And I said, oh, um I'm a Steelers fan. I'm originally from Western Pennsylvania, but sure. Yeah, the Giants are great. Uh, Mets or Yankees? He says

[40:32] to me. I said, "Oh, Pirates, actually, as bad as they are. I love the Pirates. Always have." And finally, I said, "Mr. Mayor, there's this issue of a pardon I wanted to discuss with you." And he says, "Well," and he stands up. He says, "Anybody know where the pisser is?" And he just walks away. >> It's crazy. >> Okay. >> I said to the aid, I said, "What what just happened?" And he says, "You never talk to Rudy about the pardon. You talk to me about the pardon." And I talked to Rudy. >> I was like, "Okay, whatever." >> Good fellas. Yeah. >> So, yeah. So, uh, he says, "Rudy's going

[41:05] to want$2 million." And I laughed. I looked at my lawyer. We both laughed. I said, "Listen, first of all, I don't have $2 million. I'll never have $2 million." >> Yeah. But secondly, why in the world would I spend $2 million to recover a $700,000 pension? So I stood up. I said, "Thanks for your time." And we walked out. That night, I went to a book launch event um on Capitol Hill. Buddy of mine was coming out with a book and I ran

[41:37] into another whistleblower, TSA whistleblower, and he said to me, "How was your day?" And I said, "Oh, listen to how my day was. Let me tell you what I did today. So, I told him the story that I just told you and he says, "That's a felony." I said, "I know it's a felony. They came right out and asked me for it." And he said, "Did you call the FBI?" And I said, "Come on, man. The FBI doesn't give a shit about stuff like this." So, a week passes and I happened to be in my lawyer's office. I was standing

[42:09] next to him and my cell phone rings and it's Mike Schmidt from the New York Times and he says, "A little bird told me that Rudy Giuliani tried to shake you down for 2 million for a pardon." And I said, "Ah, that Bob." I said, "Yeah, Bob was really upset when I told him the story." And he said, "Well, has the FBI called you?" And I said, "No." And he said, "Well, Bob called the FBI and he reported this as a crime." I said, "God bless him." I I kind of I kind of thought that he would. And um he said, "The FBI hasn't called you." And I said,

[42:40] "Nope." He said, "Well, you're the sixth person that we've identified um who was pitched by Giuliani for a bribe to to get them a pardon. Would you be willing to go on the record?" So I said, "Hold on." I said to my lawyer, "Am I willing to go on the record?" And he says, "Go on the record." So I said, "Sure, I'll go on the record." And uh and I gave him the interview. And I I told him exactly the same story that I just told you. So I was heartened

[43:11] when two years later, Noel Duny, who used to be uh the head of business development for Giuliani Partners, told me that when the New York Times article came out, Giuliani said that fucking Kuryaku ratted me out. >> I loved it. But what happened was killed. Yeah. >> When the Times called him, he said, "I've never met this man. I've never heard of this man. The meeting never took place." So, they wanted my comment.

[43:43] And I said, "Oh my god, he forgot that we took a picture together." So, I sent them the picture. And so, he had his denial, categorical denial. And then underneath it said, "The New York Times has seen documentary evidence that the meeting took place." Something about that guy. You throw him out of an airplane and he goes up. >> Who can figure it out? I don't understand. The guy's got nine lives. >> I don't know. >> Yeah. If you would uh jumping over, uh

[44:15] I' I I'd love to I've heard a bit of it before. I'd love to hear uh about the history of the kill list. >> Well, this is something that even I didn't know about. I had left the agency in 2004. My resignation was effective in 2005. And I was up on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff when um when a journalist from the Boston Globe called me and said that there was going to be a a feature story in the New Yorker about the Tuesday morning kill list. I said,

[44:46] "I don't know what you're talking about." And she said, 'It's this meeting that John Brennan has at the White House every Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. He meets with a gaggle of lawyers and CIA operational people and they draw up a list of who to kill that week and they come up with the list. They agree on the list. The president signs it and then these teams fan out across the country and kill people who are on the list and then they meet up again the next Tuesday. >> Just domestically or or abroad is

[45:17] >> No, no, no, no. All All abroad. You can't kill people domestically. >> I didn't I didn't think so. Okay. >> We have murder. That's murder. Yeah. You can't do that here. >> Yeah. I mean, theoretically, you could according to Barack Obama's rules of engagement. >> Yeah. I wanted I wanted to Yeah. Go ahead. I wanted to talk to you about that. I wanted I wanted to see what the what what the moral uh equivalent was, you know, or the moral distinction between the drone program and enhanced interrogation. >> I mean, that's really the $64,000

[45:48] question. Um the the DNI at the time, uh Jim Clapper, >> yeah, >> was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee at the end of the Obama presidency. And Ran Paul, Senator Ran Paul, the Republican of Kentucky, asked him pointedly multiple times if, according to the Obama administration's rules of engagement, the president was allowed legally to use a drone to kill someone

[46:18] in the United States who had never been formally accused of a crime. And there was hemming and hawing and, you know, double speak. And then finally, yeah, the answer is yes. Yes. Now, we don't know if that's ever happened. They say it hasn't, and I guess they just want us to take their word for it. But Barack Obama was far, far deadlier than George W. Bush ever was. Far deadlier. He killed 10 times the number of people with drones than George W. Bush did and

[46:51] had no compunction uh about targeting Americans. Anoir Alalaki, who was the spokesman for al-Qaeda, was an American citizen. He was born in in uh Albuquerque, New Mexico, >> and Obama killed him and then a week later killed his 16-year-old American citizen son and 16-year-old American citizen nephew who were just sitting in a coffee shop just because. What's your What's your re take on what's really going on in Venezuela?

[47:27] I think that there are elements of the Bush administration that adhere to that tired old neoonservative ideology. Um they have convinced the president that Venezuela is a major drug problem for us. It is not. It never has been. There are drugs going through Venezuela, but they are going through Venezuela on their way to West Africa for trans shshipment to Western Europe. They are not bound for the United States. We have a far far bigger problem with Mexico,

[48:01] Colombia, and Ecuador than we ever have had with drugs in uh Venezuela. But I think that that this is really being I think that the real motivator behind the policy is Marco Rubio. I think that he wants Maduro gone. There are 20 different, you know, proposed operations for making Maduro go and we'll just see which one

[48:31] they finally implement. >> Do you think we have a lot of assets in Mexico? Speaking of the cartel and and how how does that get sorted out? >> No, I don't think we have many assets in Mexico. I would be surprised if we had any real assets in Mexico because >> because until a year ago, this was DEA's problem. Uh if you're a Netflix viewer, I'm sure you saw the series Narcos. >> Yeah. You know, and every season, whether they're going after Pablo Escobar or the gentleman of Kali or one

[49:03] of the Mexican cartels, just as they're going in for the big raid, the CIA station chief steps in and fucks everything up. And the reason that they do that season after season is because that's what it's like in real life. The CIA doesn't care about drugs. Drugs are not the CIA's problem. That's DEA's problem. The CIA is concerned about communism and terrorism, not drugs. And so sometimes it's to the

[49:33] CIA's benefit to to work with the drug cartels if they're going to tell us where the communists are. >> Well, you've certainly dealt with plenty of drugs in the history of the CIA, but isn't um aren't the cartels terrorists and drug dealers? >> No. >> There's a definition of terrorism. Yeah, it's it's using violence against the public for the purpose of instilling widespread terror.

[50:04] So, no. Okay. >> I don't I don't think this the Caloa cartel isn't sending cells in here to blow up schools and, you know, bridges or attack shopping malls. That's terrorism. So, no, I think they're they're drug kingpins. you know, which is a death penalty offense in and of itself, but I I don't think they're terrorists. No. >> Yeah. You've said in the past that you feel very strongly that Jeffrey Epstein was a MSAD access agent. Walk us through

[50:35] that and what's your evidence? >> Yeah. Uh this is a textbook um access agent. So if you're a if you're a foreign intelligence service and you want intelligence from very very highly placed people like a former president, like the founder of the one of the biggest companies in the world, like a top member of the British royal family, you're not going to recruit those people. So you do the next best thing. You recruit somebody who has access to them.

[51:05] >> Sure. and and maybe you compromise them a little bit by offering up, you know, underage girls or some blow or whatever. You put them in compromising positions. You videotape everything with hidden cameras all over your mansion and then you get the information that your your handler wants. >> Sure. But couldn't have Epstein just done that on his of his own valition just for extortion and influence and

[51:35] power on his own. >> But there's no evidence that he extorted anybody. I mean, you got to do something with the influence. You got to do something with the power. You can't just sit on it like an egg. >> Well, where did And where did his money come from? That this guy never went to college. >> I That's the thing. That's the thing. You know, some say Leslie Wexner. Uh but but but there there's very little evidence of him ever even having a job. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. >> That money had to come from somewhere. >> Yeah.

[52:07] Um Yeah. I've always felt that it was compromat on other people. And I knew and I knew a lot of people who went through Epstein's various events. And the thing that most people don't understand that I want to be clear about is there was a period of time that everybody at a certain social station in life ended up at an Epstein party. That didn't make them a pedophile any more than That's right. the thousands of people I know that went to diddy parties here in LA and did not know about Freakoff. So I I I >> It's like the plane like people said,

[52:38] "Oh, Robert Kennedy Jr. was on the plane." Yeah. With his wife and his children. >> That's right. They h they had a conversation one time. What are you going to do for Easter? We're going to go to Palm Beach. Oh, I'm going to go to Palm Beach for Easter. Why don't you come on my plane? And he gave them a ride. And that was it. So, yeah, sure. RFK Jr. was on the plane. So was his entire family. No big deal. >> Yeah. And I had heard from someone that was at the island a lot that said every time Bill Clinton came to the island, the girls were cleared out.

[53:09] >> Okay, that's a good thing. >> Yeah. And in fact, nobody has accused Bill Clinton of improper behavior with underage girls. >> Correct. So, you've known John Brennan since 1990, and you worked for him twice. Why did you call him a terrible choice to lead the CIA at the time? >> I never thought John was particularly intelligent. I thought that uh he achieved his high rank because he was very personally close to George Tennant. They hit it off. They were great friends. And every time uh George had

[53:41] the opportunity to promote John, he promoted him. But I never thought he was particularly bright. And as it turned out, he was also vicious beyond anything I had ever seen ever in my adult life before or after. Interesting. Do you think American exceptionalism, the idea that we're better than other countries, is real, or is it just propaganda? Oh yeah. I mean it's it's real in the

[54:13] minds of a lot of people. >> Sure. >> But uh and I used to think I used to believe in American exceptionalism. I really did until I saw how the sausage got made and then I realized no, we're just as flawed as everybody else. Yeah. the uh the Obama administration, which you're no fan of, prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined. Why? >> That's right. Three times as many as all

[54:44] previous presidents combined. That That's an easy answer. Actually, it's because John Brennan was in charge of those uh of those cases. He instilled in Barack Obama a Nixonian obsession with national security leaks and convinced Obama to go after people with the full force of the Justice Department. I mean, we got we got memos in Discovery in my own case. I'm sure you've heard me say this in the past where Brennan writes to uh writes to Eric Holder, the attorney

[55:15] general, and says, "Charge him with espionage." And Holder writes back and says, "My people don't think he committed espionage." And then Brennan writes back to Holder and says, "Charge him anyway and make him defend himself." They charged me with three counts of espionage, waited until I went bankrupt, and then dropped the espionage charges. >> And now it's Brennan's turn to get that kind of treatment. >> Yeah. John, >> what you sow? >> Yeah. John, if a young person came to you today telling you they wanted to join CIA, what would you tell them?

[55:47] depends on what day it is to tell you the truth. Um like deep down I I think the CIA should be abolished but >> replaced with what? >> It's already there are 18 intelligence agencies in the US government. It's already replaced by 17 others. You don't even need to create anything else. The the State Department has the Bureau of Intelligence and Research that does analysis that is at least as good as the CIA's analysis and in many ways better. The Pentagon's Defense Human Services

[56:18] already recruits spies to steal secrets just like the CIA does. We don't need the DO to do that. The director of operations, DARPA and NSA already do all the science and technology stuff as well as the the public se or sorry the private sector doing it thanks to you know investments from INQEL. I mean look at Palanteer. It's a CIA creation. >> Yeah. So, what does the CIA do that's unique or particularly valuable? Nothing. Now, with that said, I'm a

[56:48] realist and I know that the CIA is not going to be disbanded. And so I tell people if you want to get into the CIA, go in with your own set of moral principles, moral values, and by the time you're in for about 10 years, you're you're in a position of some authority by then, and you might be able to change the organization from inside, but other than that, I I I wish it would just fall apart.

[57:19] >> Got your two more questions. Do you have any regrets about the way you handle things or would you do it all again the same way? >> I would do it all again. But the there is one important thing I would change and I say this to to wouldbe whistleblowers all the time. Have an attorney sitting next to you. Uh go to an attorney, especially an attorney who's skilled in whistleblower protection before you blow the whistle. Don't be reactive like I was. >> Got you. Uh what are you working on now?

[57:50] And what's next for John Keryaku? >> I'm doing a lot right now. I have three, thank God, I have three successful podcasts on on Rumble and YouTube. I have one every day called Deep Program. On YouTube, I have one that's like crazy successful. I can't even believe it. Called Deep Focus with John Kuryaku. I've got one on uh Apple uh podcast on Spotify called John Kuryaku's um John Kuryaku's uh dead drop. What

[58:23] makes a spy tick? It's in the top 2% of all podcasts worldwide now. And I've been able, thank God, to monetize them all. I just sent my um my ninth book to the publisher. My eighth book is coming out March 20 24th. It's called uh Remains of the Day, a definitive guide to Washington DC's Historic Cemeteries. It's my eighth book, but my first one that's not about the CIA. My next one um >> is called uh Whispers in the Dirt, a definitive guide to New York City's

[58:55] Mafia Graves. And um >> yeah, and I'm teaching at a couple of different universities. And there's there's a lot going on. John, what's the best place for my listeners to uh to catch up with you and find all your links? >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's uh easy. It's johnkuryaku.com. john i r i a k o.com. >> Great. Appreciate it. >> Thanks so much for taking all the time with me and answering all the questions. >> My pleasure. Good to see you. >> You too. The Bad Decisions podcast was

[59:26] produced by Brock Workman of Herat Entertainment. Be sure to hit the like button [music] and subscribe to the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. My book, The Big Book [music] of Bad Decisions, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. A special thanks to today's guest, John Kuryaku, for joining me. I'm your host, Scott Nathan. Thanks for listening.
