Hire a lawyer first
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Asked what he had learned, John Kiriakou divides his answer in two: one philosophical lesson and one practical one.

The philosophical lesson

The first is a formula: "know the truth and the truth shall set you free." The truth should always be paramount, he says, even when it is painful. "We always have to know the truth and to tell the truth."

The practical lesson

The second is procedural and he states it as an instruction. He would advise anybody, anywhere in the world, who is considering blowing the whistle on "waste, fraud, abuse, illegality, or threats to the public health or public safety, which is the international definition of whistleblowing", to hire a lawyer first, and to have that lawyer sitting next to them when they blow the whistle.

The same advice, elsewhere

He gives the identical counsel outside the intelligence context. Asked on a podcast about unidentified aerial phenomena what advice he would give to someone holding credible information and considering coming forward, he recommended consulting an attorney who specialises in whistleblower rights, a category, he noted, that is easy to find in Washington and harder outside it.

The reasoning he attaches there is protective in both directions. Such a lawyer will understand where the discloser is coming from, will protect their rights, and will "also protect you from overstepping", so that the FBI, or the Defense Department, or the CIA, or anyone else, cannot ruin their life. He repeats the sequencing: consult an attorney before saying anything at all publicly, and make sure the attorney is present when the revelation is made. "You'll never ever regret doing that."

Why the advice reads as it does

Kiriakou did not do this. He gave a televised interview in December 2007 without counsel beside him, and spent the following five years discovering what the government could construct from it. The advice is stated flatly and without reference to his own case, but it is the inverse of his own sequence.

See also

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Edward Snowden
- Espionage Act
