The second officer in the same case
===================================

Two days before he was sentenced, John Kiriakou gave an interview in which he disclosed something he said had not previously been made public.

The document

His attorneys, he said, had "just recently discovered a document" showing that while he had confirmed the name of one CIA officer involved in the torture programme, a second CIA officer had provided the same reporter with considerably more: the names of ten undercover officers, information about counterterrorist operations, and the flight plans for "the black flight going to the secret prison."

That officer, Kiriakou said, "was not investigated and was not prosecuted."

The inference

Kiriakou draws a single conclusion from the disparity: "the only conclusion I can draw is that it's because he didn't blow the whistle on torture." He continues that the Justice Department had made a decision in 2007 to come after him, "and they were very patient and they just waited until they could cobble some some charges together, and that's what they ended up doing."

He does not name the second officer, does not name the reporter, and does not describe how the document came into his lawyers' hands. Nor does he claim the second officer's disclosures were prosecutable and declined, only that they were not looked at.

Where it sits in his account

The episode is one of two comparisons Kiriakou returns to when arguing that the Intelligence Identities Protection Act charge was a vehicle rather than a grievance; the other is David Petraeus, who disclosed the names of ten undercover officers to his biographer and received probation. The second officer is the sharper of the two, because the recipient was the same reporter in the same episode.

In the same interview Kiriakou set out the wider asymmetry he saw. Asked whether he was the first CIA officer to receive jail time over torture, he answered that others had been jailed for embezzlement or for spying for the Soviets, but on torture: "I'm the only one. Nobody, nobody else has even been charged with a crime." He noted that even in cases where alleged al-Qaeda prisoners "were killed during their interrogation," nobody faced charges.

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Intelligence Identities Protection Act
- David Petraeus
- Espionage Act
- CIA Torture Program Whistleblowing
