Episode 572 Blowing the Whistle with John Kiriakou

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[01:03] I'm not a crook. Are you ready to go? Shame on you. It's A. Blinken's Top Hats, hosted by Ben Kissell. Yeah. Boom, he can't get fooled again. Hey, what's up, everyone? How you doing? Ben Kissell here hanging out with Fernando. Hi, Ben. Hi, Fernando. And I'm hanging out with Travis Irvine. Hello, Ben. Yo, Travis. How you guys doing? Doing good. Doing great. I am so excited for this episode. We have an interview with John Kariaku. And he is a former counterterrorism CIA officer.

[01:37] He also served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program. The man is an American patriot. He's a hero. He's a whistleblower. He found out the U.S. was doing something unconstitutional, not to mention immoral. And he said something about it. And because of that, he himself was put through hell. So this interview, I think you guys are going to love it.

[02:07] Truly, by the end of it, it's like, I almost, you almost want to cry at the end. Because we do see just how pervasive the intelligence community is. And just sort of how they manipulate and control our everyday lives is something that we always need to be aware of. And I think John does a great job of shedding light on that. Yes, it's a very sad story. But as you pointed out, a very heroic story. John was in the CIA for a long time. And yes, he was a whistleblower. He exposed the Bush administration's torture programs that were codified and known about throughout the administration.

[02:42] The interesting thing, of course, like you mentioned, the strong arm of the intelligence agencies. John didn't get convicted or even had charges brought against him until the Obama administration came and took care of that. So his story is fascinating. Again, Republicans, Democrats, it doesn't matter. The intelligence agencies, if you try to turn against them and do the right thing as John tried to do, they will turn against you. So we see that until this day, it still permeates throughout our culture. Absolutely. And John is also the author of a series of books.

[03:13] One being Doing Time Like a Spy, another one, The CIA Guide to Surveillance. And of course, another one, The CIA Guide to Disappearing, which is about as scary as it gets. And of course, his first book was The Reluctant Spy. And you get to hear all about his story from there, or you get to hear all about it from him today. Absolutely. Fernando? I just, I cannot wait for people to finish this interview. Awesome. It was intense. All right, let's just hop right into it. Please enjoy this interview.

[03:43] All right, everyone. Now it is time for our interview and conversation with a man that Travis Irvine brought to our attention. Travis, would you like to tell us a little bit about John Carriacou? Oh, yes. Well, John Carriacou is an American hero. He is a former intelligence officer with the US intelligence services. He served this country well. And of course, he's got an incredible story about being a whistleblower in this country and what that is like for those types of people. Of course, John was on tour with us on the Liberty Tour 2016 with Gary Johnson.

[04:15] And that is how I know him. Ben, you also spoke at a number of our rallies. Technically, we are all Liberty Lovin' Liberal Lovers. Yes. Perfect, Travis. All right, everyone, a good whistleblower, unlike those NFL referees, which nobody likes. But John Carriacou, thank you so much for being on the show. My pleasure. So let's just start things off. Obviously, we've been talking a little bit about General Milley. We're constantly talking about the surveillance state, the extension of the surveillance state. It seems as if they're turning the cameras inward.

[04:48] And now we are the specimen that they are hunting. So can you tell us a little bit about your background as a whistleblower? How did you get to this position? And I can't imagine as a child, you think, I, when I grow up, I want to be a whistleblower. It's something that just kind of happens. So just happens. Yeah, can you tell us your experience? Yeah, no child in his or her right mind would ever want to aspire to be a whistleblower. Nothing good comes of it other than the fact that you can sleep at night and your children respect you.

[05:20] So, you know, at least at least you have that as a good thing. What led you down the path of being a truth teller? What was happening where you said, I can't, I'm not sleeping. If I know this information and I know there's deception going on. What what was it for you? It was a combination of things. You know, on my very first day of federal service, I stood in the CIA's auditorium with 300 other new hires on our very first day at work. And I put my right hand in the air and I swore to protect and to uphold

[05:50] the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And, you know, in retrospect, I hate to even think that I was the only person in the room that day that meant it. I've always been I've always been a person who was who was respectful of the rule of law. Even if I didn't agree with the rule or the law, you know, we're Americans. And there's a way to go about changing laws. And so you can't just decide you don't like a law and then pretend that it doesn't exist.

[06:23] Right. And after 14 years, 15 years at the CIA, the torture program began. And to me, this was it was obviously unethical and immoral, but it was also very clearly illegal. And I always thought, well, you know, I'm anti torture, but reasonable people can agree to disagree. But by God, if you want to torture people in this country, you've got to change the law and then have the law allow you to torture. We had or we have.

[06:54] We continue to have something called the the Torture Act of 1946, which outlaws specifically the torture techniques that we used against Al Qaeda prisoners in 1946. We executed Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American POWs. We executed them. That was a capital crime to waterboard somebody in 1968. In January of 1968, the Washington Post ran a front page photograph of an American soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner.

[07:27] And on the day that that picture ran, the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara ordered an investigation. The soldier was arrested. He was charged with torture, convicted and sentenced to 20 years at Leavenworth. And now, of course, we live in a nation where Dick Cheney is openly talking about waterboarding with a character played by Sasha Baron Cohen, unbeknownst to Cheney. He thought he was an ally. Yes, we live in a world where the most powerful people almost seem to be gleeful when talking about torture.

[07:59] And at the same time, the the law never changed. We changed. Right. And so, you know, why was torture a death penalty offense in 1946? Worthy of 20 years of hard labor in 1968. And then in 2002, no, it's fine. You could just go ahead and do it. So what what year was it that you joined the CIA? Was this late 80s, early 90s? I joined in very late 1989. My my first day on the job was the day after New Year's 1990.

[08:31] And I spent the first seven and a half years as an analyst on Iraq. Can you explain a little bit about what that means being an analyst? When it comes to Iraq, obviously, at this point, Rumsfeld had received the key to the city, basically from Saddam Hussein. Yeah, we hadn't yet gone in. That's right. HW is Exploration of War within that region. That, of course, happened there in 91, 92, I believe. 91. Correct. 91. So what were you doing up to that point before our first US

[09:02] made bombs started exploding over Baghdad? What was your life like? That's that's the fun part of the story. So I was recruited into the CIA by my grad school advisor, who was undercover as a professor. Actually, it was actually a CIA officer acting as a spotter, looking for people who might fit into the CIA's culture. And he spotted me and recruited me and and I joined the CIA. That's a fascinating process in itself in hindsight. Now that you have a little bit of years behind you.

[09:34] Yeah. Did you feel as if you were preyed upon or are you do you agree with their assessment of you? And do you agree with their reaction with your reaction? Once they said, look at you, you might just be CIA because it's kind of like getting into Hogwarts. It's sort of like your your magic. It is. And you know, it's not all milk and honey, either. I learned from a CIA psychiatrist later that the CIA actively recruits people who have sociopathic tendencies, not sociopaths.

[10:04] Right. Of course. Sociopaths have no conscience. They blow right through a polygraph, but they're impossible to control because because they can't stop themselves from from committing criminal acts. Right. Of course, they get off on deception. I interviewed somebody who worked with psychopaths and sociopaths, and he said, you know, that they failed a lie detector test when after the test is taken, there's a spike because they feel as if they've just passed, they think they've just gotten away with something. So the actual test itself, everyone's like, yeah,

[10:34] they seem like they're not lying. But afterwards, you be like, how did I do? And they'd be like, you passed. I'm like, yes. And then they see this massive spike. And so it's it's a post reaction to them being deceptive. But in the CIA, you still have to be reliable. Yeah, you still have to tell the truth. You know, they told us in that first week on the job, there are three people you can never lie to. You can never lie to medical, finance or security. You can lie to your wife. You shouldn't lie to your boss, but people do.

[11:05] But medical, finance and security can ruin your life. And certainly why those three things. Because medical, they're all psychiatrists and psychologists. And they want to make sure that you're not too nuts to go overseas and do what they spent a million dollars training you to do. Finance, listen, intelligence is a cash business. And I've been, you know, driving down the road in Pakistan, going through the Khyber Pass with $10 million in cash in my van and lots and lots of weapons.

[11:37] So you can't steal it. It's not yours. You've got to account for every cent of it. And we accounted for every cent. And then security, you can't pull the dumb and dumber IOU bit where you're like, that's for Ferrari. You're going to want to hold on to that. You have to deliver all the money. And believe me, everybody thinks about it, but no fooling around with the cash. And then security is obvious, you know, they're constantly looking to see, are you going to go to the Russians or the Chinese or the Israelis or the media, which is just as bad?

[12:09] So so you had seven and a half years working in the analytics, I guess, area, yes, a field when it comes to Iraq. And obviously we can kind of breeze past this because it seems as if it was torture when it comes to boredom. But anything that you picked up on in those seven and a half years that we could sort of infer as far as what the future of Iraq and U.S. relations relations were looking like anything like once nine 11 happened, were you like, well, it's just a matter of time now? Or what were your thoughts? Um, I wrote about this actually in my first book.

[12:43] Let me go back. Let me go back a little bit to to 1990. I was given Iraq because nothing ever happened there. It was the same cabinet since the 1968 revolution. We would go entire days without a single cable, no press, no, no State Department cable, no nothing, nothing would happen there. And they told me, learn tradecraft, learn the CIA writing style and we'll transfer you on to something exciting like Romania. They actually told me that.

[13:13] And then just as I got to the point where I knew what I was doing and I was kind of an expert in the field, Iraq invaded Kuwait August 2nd, 1990. So I go into the office seven o'clock that morning. I'll never forget it like it was yesterday. I walk in and my boss says, don't take your jacket off. We're going to the White House. And I kind of thought I was going to end up at the White House that day. So we get in a car, we drive to the White House. You go through these different levels of security

[13:43] and they take us to the Oval Office. So I walk in. It's the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the national security adviser, the CIA director, my boss and me. Wow. And so I sit on the couch for a fact. Most of the people in that room know how to spell potato. Not Dan Quayle, not Dan Quayle. Not Dan Quayle, unfortunately. That's an insider. It's a very old. That's a 19 menu. That's a 19. Yeah, you know, it's funny. Dan Quayle was the one guy in that meeting

[14:15] who never said a single word. I believe it. The only is all over his head. Yeah, he didn't like what are we talking about now? So so you are basically a minor league baseball pitcher who just got called up to the Yankees. And you are in the World Series. And it's the World Series. So I sit on the couch. Everybody's sitting around the presidents in his regular chair. And he says, so now what do we do? And everybody turns and looks at me. Oh, my God. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm 25 years old at this point.

[14:46] Holy shit. So I said, well, Mr. President, I said the Kuwaiti government's been overthrown. Most of them have fled to Saudi Arabia. And the Iraqis have installed a puppet government led by. And I, you know, gave the guy's name. Well, do we know anything about him? And I said, yes, sir. He was the founding member. He was the co-founding member of the popular front for the liberation of Palestine. And Dick Cheney says, Jesus Christ, like that. Yeah. And.

[15:16] You know, the conversation started, we got to push him out. I mean, that was it. We got to push him out. And what was Cheney's role during the early 90s? Secretary of Defense. Right. Yeah. Secretary of Defense. Did you find during that experience, first of all, how unnerving was that or how shocking was it that you were the one with the answers? Crazy. 25 years old. Crazy. Of course, that would be, you know, remiss, not to mention Dick Cheney, 35 years old, youngest chief of staff of all time.

[15:48] That's right. And now we have someone 10 years his junior. And now you are being asked for the definitive answer when it comes to a massive geopolitical fiasco. Yeah, it was crazy. And, you know, the first thought. And like I say, in my mind, this is like it happened yesterday. My first thought was if my buddies from high school could see this, they would shit themselves. Yeah. Like if I told people, they probably wouldn't even believe me. Like, what did you do today? Oh, I believe the entire leadership of the US government.

[16:20] But I mean, that's that's the situation that you find yourself in. Just just three years later or two years later, I'm in the regular morning meeting that we did every morning at nine o'clock. Every branch meets to go over what happened overnight. I'm sitting in there and the secretary walks in and she says, excuse me, John, General Powell is on the phone for you. And I said, General Powell, I said, how does he know who I am? And she said, I don't know, but he asked for you by name. And everybody's like, oh, right.

[16:52] Well, and let's not forget during this time, this was peak general Powell's power. Yeah. I mean, I believe he was on the cover of Time magazine. He was around this era being like, hey, you should run for president. He was really like this guy. It really liked him. And he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So so I go to my secure phone and I pick it up. And I said, good morning, General Powell, may I help you? And he said very, very evenly. He said, John, if the Iraqis were going to kill President Bush,

[17:22] this was former President George H.W. Bush, right? Who would be the person actually in charge of carrying out that operation? And I said, well, if you're talking about the attack that that was foiled in Kuwait, I said the Iraqi Intelligence Service Kuwait Station is run from Basra and Basra Station is personally headed by Abdulaziz Adouri. He's the head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. And Powell says, where does he sit? And I said, in Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters in Baghdad,

[17:55] he says, thank you. And he hangs up. OK, I go back in. What did he want? I told them what he wanted. Eight hours later, we fired 48 cruise missiles at Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters. Well, how did that make you feel knowing that your words manifested themselves in action that, of course, was quite violent? You know, at the time I was excited and proud. And as time has passed, I've come to the realization

[18:28] that I was responsible for the death of an innocent janitor that night. We struck them in the middle of the night, Baghdad time, blew the building to smithereens. Right. There was one person inside and it was the janitor. It's always the fricking janitor. I believe there was that was the one of the few people that died on 9 11 during the Pentagon attack was like a janitor. And there was a there was a work group. It's always the people that don't get the memo that bombs are about to be flying overhead. Right. Right. So I felt very bad about that.

[19:01] But I'll tell you, it was Iraq, Iraq, Iraq all the time. And I got tired because it was clear to me that we weren't serious about doing anything about Saddam Hussein, at least not through the Clinton administration. And so I got bored and I decided to do something else. And I wanted to make a transition to operations, which was very, very unusual at the time. But my hook was I was literally the only person in the CIA that was fluent in both Arabic and Greek.

[19:33] And there was a position that opened in Athens in counterterrorism, handling, you know, Libyans, Iraqis, Palestinians, working these counterterrorism issues. Yeah. And so, you know, I went down to the counterterrorism center and got the job. So what is and of course, let's we can kind of fast forward to the early 2000s and one second, but just to clarify, because this is a whole other world that I'm not privy to. You went from analytics to operations. What is the exact difference as far as jobs and how what does that entail?

[20:06] Right. Well, that's actually a very good question. And when I when I told my boss on the analytics side that I was going to switch to operations, the first thing he said to me was, are you sure you know what you're getting into? And I said, yeah, man, I'm so bored. I said, I just sit here and drink coffee all day long. And he said, you know, they're going to train you to kill people. Right. And I said, Ben, you watch too many movies, buddy. And I laughed. Two weeks later, I go to training at the CIA's facility,

[20:39] colloquially known as the farm, right? And they're training me to kill people. And I'm standing there thinking you have got to be kidding me. And there was one point where, you know, they they taught us. You know, how to jump out of planes to parachute into enemy territory and what to do if you're captured. And, you know, how to withstand torture. Well, not really withstand it, but as long as you can. And I remember saying to the instructor, this is pre 9-11, of course.

[21:12] So I said, listen, I'm going to be recruiting people at diplomatic cocktail parties. I'm not going to be jumping out of planes behind enemy lines. Two years later, 9-11's happened. I'm in a plane and I turned to this guy next to me and I said, I can't freaking believe I'm going to jump out of this plane. Wow. Wow. That's insane. You mentioned torture and obviously the CIA. I'm not sure how you train someone to withstand torture. I don't know what that process is.

[21:43] It can't be very comfortable. No, it's awful. But let's let's talk about that. So 9-11 happens. You are you're again, you're working in operations. Are you still in Athens at this time? You're back in the States. No, I returned to headquarters from Athens in the summer of 2000. OK. And and I was working in a group that trained Middle Eastern intelligence services in counterterrorism operations. OK, so kind of back to a desk job in some ways, sipping a little bit more coffee than you'd like, most likely.

[22:14] Yeah, lots of travel to cool places. So it was worth it. OK, great. So September 11th, you know, let's say 7.55 in the morning, Eastern Standard Time, planes begin to, you know, do what they did to the towers. Go on, please. I had I had a meeting that day with Condoleezza Rice. I was going down to the White House with Kofir Black, Ambassador Kofir Black, who was the director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. And, you know, it's funny. The the the White House ordered the publication

[22:46] and the declassification of these historical cables from 1947 to 1969. And we found three of the three of these cables outed sources of ours who were still alive. And so we were going to talk to Condoleezza Rice about pulling these cables out of the finished product. So she kept saying, no, no, no, she was the National Security Advisor at the time. No, we're not going to do that.

[23:16] Transparency, declassification. So Kofir said, let's let's just go down there and make the pitch. I said, great. So I got a call saying our car was ready to take us to the White House. So I walked over to Kofir's office to tell him it was time to go. And his secretary had a TV on her desk when that was a novel thing. And and one of the towers of the World Trade Center was burning. And I said, what happened in World Trade Center? And she said, oh, a plane flew into it. And I said, because I'm an idiot.

[23:46] I said, you know, that happened once before in 1930, a plane flew into the Empire State Building, but it was really rainy and foggy that day. And it's so clear today. How can you not see that you're flying into the World Trade Center? And just as I said that, the second plane hit. Wow. And she turned to me and she said, did you see that? Or did I imagine it? Wow. And I ran back to my office and I said, guys, two planes just hit both towers of the World Trade Center.

[24:17] We're under attack. And all hell broke loose from there. Can you explain a little bit about what that? What do you mean when all hell breaks loose? Well, everybody in the Counterterrorism Center ran to the front office and we had TVs mounted along the ceiling. They were all on different networks, US and and foreign networks. And, you know, it was just. It was just developing. There were reports that a car bomb had gone off at the State Department that somebody had fired a rocket at the White House.

[24:48] And it was just if everybody was standing there in silence and somebody behind me shouted, will somebody please lead? And it was like somebody had slapped Kofur. So he says, you go to the director's office and say this, you go to the security and tell them that you go to, you know. And so finally, a couple of cops came, you know, CIA has its own police force called the Special Protective Officers. And so these two Spos came to the to the office and said,

[25:22] everybody out, everybody evacuate, nobody, nobody budged. Kofur got up on his desk and he said, we all know who did this. He said, we're at war today and we're all going to have to do our part. Not all of us are going to make it home. So if this isn't for you, no one will think less of you if you walk out now and nobody budged. Finally, the cops came back and said, if we didn't evacuate, we would be arrested. So we evacuated.

[25:52] So when it comes to Mr. Black, what was, who did he think? Did it? I mean, was he thinking Iraq? Was he thinking? No, no, no, no, no, no. Nobody, nobody believed Iraq had anything to do with this, except Dick Janney and the minions around him. And any verbiage about the Saudis? Well, a lot of verbiage about the Saudis. Listen, on July 6th, right, two months before 9-11, July 6th, 2001, I was hosting a group of Middle Eastern intelligence officers.

[26:24] And this was a normal daily liaison exchange, right? They fly in, we give them a day of briefings. They get a photo op with the director. We exchange gifts and then we take them out to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. We do this every single day, right? Much more of just a diplomatic affair. Absolutely. So we had this group come in on July 6th, and I asked the junior analyst on Al Qaeda to come in and give a briefing.

[26:57] So it came time for this briefing and in Wax Cofer and the counterterrorism center's chief of operations. And I was shocked and I stood up and I said, oh, I said, gentlemen, this is this is Mr. Cofer Black, he's the director of the CIA's counterterrorism center. And I introduced these guys to Cofer. I was shocked. Yeah. And he sat down and he said, and I'll never forget it. It was he was so impassioned.

[27:28] He said, gentlemen, something terrible is going to happen. We don't know when and we don't know where, but we know it's going to be massive. He said, the mood in the camps is one of jubilation. We are hearing camp commanders on the phone with their students and they're crying and saying, I'll see you in paradise. They're using code words for a massive attack. The honey salesman is coming with vast quantities of honey. There's going to be a great wedding.

[27:59] There's going to be a great football game. He said, these are all codes for a huge attack. And he said, we just don't know when or where. And he said, I beg you, if you have any sources inside Al Qaeda, please help us. And they just sat there. So what did that mean to you when they just sat there? That they didn't have any sources. Just like we didn't think that they were just like they were deceptive. OK. Yeah. No.

[28:29] Al Qaeda's operational security was so excellent that no one could infiltrate them. We just couldn't do it. So at the end of the day, I sent these guys back to the hotel before dinner and I went to Cofer's office to thank him. And I said, Cofer, I got to ask you, I don't work on Al Qaeda. Was that just for their benefit or were you serious? And he said, oh, I was serious. Something terrible is going to happen. And then September 11th, there it is. It's just unfolding in front of us.

[28:59] Oh, my God. So all of these. So do you sort of go back in your mind also when you think of Al Qaeda that we on last podcast on the left, the other show that I do, we talk a lot about cults. And that seems as if they were in the waning moments of a death cult. Where is jubilation? It is joy. That's a good way to say it because Osama bin Laden had literally no religious credentials, none. He wasn't any mom. He wasn't learned in the Koran, none. He was a cult leader. That's really what it came down to.

[29:31] The all new tropical butterfly refresher is now at Starbucks. Dive into juicy guava and pasture fruit flavors with mango pineapple popping pearls bursting in every sip, ice cold, instantly refreshing and impossible to put down made for summer only at Starbucks. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from it mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out

[30:03] that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Sea terms. So as 9 11 is occurring and unfolded in front of your eyes, as you mentioned, you have these flashbacks to these moments that you maybe thought were innocuous and that really mattered. Oh, yeah, let's go let's go forward a little bit then as some of the policy decisions that were being made at that time

[30:35] by mostly Dick Cheney, you know, and NW was in my opinion, more of a mouthpiece. And I don't think he's stupid by any means. I actually think that's a gross understatement because he is intelligent in his own right. And God knows agree with all that. Yeah, he has caused the policies that he created. But anyway, go on. But but listen, but it was clear. It was clear to us inside the CIA that Dick Cheney was the president. Yeah, right. It was clear. So so with that knowledge and sort of knowing the hawkish nature of Dick, as things began to transpire, we know what 9 11 was.

[31:08] I mean, don't forget. I mean, I'm sure no one else. No one here will forget. But, you know, the buildings were smoldering for weeks. Yeah. And the US and the American people and the world were like, what the hell is going on? We had massive support as the plans were being drawn up as far as a reaction to the 9 11 attacks. What were your thoughts? Were did you think the US was going in the right direction? Obviously, I think 99 percent of what we'll say 95. We'll say 90 percent of people agreed with Afghanistan.

[31:38] Yeah, the Afghanistan war, I think, did have quite a bit of it was by parts. Yeah, it was. But as things were transpiring, what were your thoughts? As all of a sudden, we hear Iraq, all of a sudden, we hear Axis of Evil, all of these sorts of things were in terror. Well, I volunteered to go to Iraq repeatedly. I kept telling myself, my Arabic is excellent. Who's going to be interrogating these prisoners? Right. As we as we start capturing these al-Qaeda fighters and al-Qaeda leaders, who's interrogating them?

[32:09] And about six weeks after 9 11, I run into an old friend of mine in the hall. He's a 70 was a 72 year old contractor. He's dead now. But I said, hey, man, where you been? And he looks around, he says, I've been in Afghanistan. And I said, really, what do you do in there? And he looks at me like I'm crazy. And he says, I've been killing people. What do you think I've been doing? And I said, oh, my God, that's why they haven't sent me.

[32:41] They don't need any translator. They're not capturing anybody. They're just killing everyone that they come into contact with. That they come into contact with. So I went into the into Cofer's deputy's office. I had worked for him a couple of years earlier. And I made this totally idle threat. I said, if you don't send me to Afghanistan right now, I am walking straight to Exxon with my Arabic and I am not looking back.

[33:12] And he's like, take it easy. He goes, can you go to Pakistan? And I said, yes, when? He said, tomorrow. I said, yes. What do you want me to do? He said, I want you to be chief of counterterrorism operations there. I said, done. Can I leave now? I'm going to go pack. And he goes, go. So I called my girlfriend. She later became my wife and I said, I got to go to Pakistan tomorrow. Can you meet me at my place and help me pack? So she met me there. I packed next day.

[33:42] I flew to Pakistan and I took over counterterrorism operations there. So I was there seven months. I'm going to make a very long story, very short. And we captured Abu Zubaydah, who we believed was the number three in al-Qaeda. He was not the number three, but he was a very bad man. He had founded and run al-Qaeda's two training camps in southern Afghanistan. And he had founded and run the House of Martyrs

[34:14] safe house, al-Qaeda safe house in Peshawar, Pakistan. He was the logistics guy. If you wanted to get into Afghanistan to fight the Americans, he got you in. If you were tired of the fight, he got you out. You wanted to go home. He got you a fake passport and a plane ticket to wherever you came from. So he was a very bad guy. We caught him. We sent him to a secret prison. And I returned to headquarters. Now this is where I can answer your question.

[34:46] I got the headquarters at the end of May. 2002. And I was in the cafeteria one day, getting lunch. And one of the big shots from the counter-terrorism center came up to me very casually. And he said, hey, I'm glad I ran into you. I wanted to ask, would you be interested in being trained in enhanced interrogation techniques? And I had never heard that term before. And I said, enhanced interrogation techniques. What does that mean? And he says, we're going to start getting

[35:16] rough with these guys. And I said, well, what does that mean? And he laid out these 10 techniques. I said, oh, I don't know, man, that sounds like a torture program. Can you go through some of those techniques that kind of specifically stood out where you're like, oh, red flag, red flag. Well, waterboarding was the famous one, or the one that became famous. But I thought that there were two that were worse than waterboarding. One was sleep deprivation. We know from the American Psychological Association

[35:49] that people begin to lose their minds at day seven with no sleep. They begin to die at day nine. Your organs, you go into organ failure at day nine. But the CIA was authorized to keep people awake for 12 days. Now, this is with you changed to an eyeball in the ceiling. So you can't kneel or sit or lay or get comfortable in any way. Industrial strength lights beaming down on you

[36:19] and then just death metal blasting at you 24 hours a day. You go crazy. The other one was called the cold cell where you're chained to that eyeballed in the ceiling again. You're stripped naked. Your cell is chilled to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. And every hour somebody goes into the cell and throws a bucket of ice water on you. We killed two people with that technique. It reminds me of unit 731, which was a horrible unit in Japan during World War II, I believe,

[36:51] where they would do similar things, leave people out in the cold, dump water on their hands, then they would shatter the ice off of their hands, obviously breaking their fingers and everything like that. So when you hear the enhanced interrogation, again, a cute word for torture, you're in there, you're just surrounded by, I assume, some kind of jello mold. I don't know what people eat in the White House. Did things change for you that day? Yes, they changed for me quite literally that day because I turned down the training. And of the 14 people that they asked,

[37:21] I was the only one who turned it down. And you're the same guy who was like, send me to fucking Afghanistan. Okay, I'll take Pakistan. And it wasn't like you were, you know, resting on your laurels or sitting on your ass. I had just caught the number three al Qaeda. And so because I turned down the training, they passed me over for promotion. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I complained and I said, what do I have to do? I have to catch bin Laden to get promoted around here. But what happened was, I had been such a star from Pakistan that they sent me up

[37:53] to the seventh floor, the executive level, and I became the executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director. So he gave me an out of cycle promotion. And in that job, I got to see literally everything that the CIA was doing everywhere in the world. Now my very first day in that job, I walked in to the deputy director's office and I said, okay, so what do we do? And he said, can't tell you until you sign

[38:25] your secrecy agreements, you need to go down to room, you know, 606 or whatever it was, they have your secrecy agreements there for you to sign. So I go down there. They're all laid out on a table. And I knew the guy, the security officer. So I sign all six of these agreements saying that I'll never breathe a word of this as long as I live, unless it's declassified. So I sign all six and I said, okay, so what's up? And he takes this deep breath. He goes, well, next year in March, we're going to invade Iraq.

[39:02] We're going to overthrow Saddam Hussein. We're going to open the world's largest air force base. And we're going to move all of our air assets out of Saudi Arabia into Iraq so that we can deprive Osama bin Laden of the ability of saying that we're polluting the land of the two holy mosques. And I looked at him, I was like speechless. And all I could, all I could blurt out was we haven't caught bin Laden yet.

[39:33] And he said, John, the battle lines have been drawn. The decisions have been made. And he said, and there are two sides to this. He said the side that doesn't want to attack Iraq is the CIA, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the warmongers are the Office of the Vice President, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council. And he said, and guess what? We lose. Oh, man. Yeah. So in some ways, you have more power than obviously

[40:04] the vast majority of civilians. Oh, yeah. But then in others, you're just as knee-capped and handcuffed by the policies as all of us. The CIA is a support agency. They do what the White House tells them to do. It's as simple as that. I went back to the deputy director's office and I walked in and he said, they read you in, huh? Meaning I signed the documents. And I said, are they out of their minds? And he said, yes, they are. And I'll tell you another thing.

[40:36] George Tennant was the director at the time. And because Iraq became my issue, I was the executive assistant for Iraq. I was the note-taker in all of George's meetings with the principals. So here we are, the day before we invade Iraq. It may have been two days before. And we're doing a secure video teleconference. So George is sitting at the head of the table. I'm sitting directly behind him, taking notes. So on all the video screens,

[41:06] here's Cheney and Condi Rice and General, whoever it was at the time, General Hor, maybe I don't remember, and Colin Powell and the head of NSA. And it's all the principals, right? So George is just sitting there like this. And because we're a support agency, the CIA director's job is to answer a question if one is asked. Otherwise, you sit there silently because we're not policymakers.

[41:37] The policy comes from the White House and the departments of state and defense. So they asked General, whoever it was, General, I'm going to have to look it up because I can't remember. His name's on the tip of my tongue. They asked him for a briefing. And he said, this division is here on the border and elements of this core are over here and this division is moving there. And we've got these tanks are here and these tanks are there.

[42:08] And he's saying, we're going to move in from the south and we're going to move in from the west and we have ships offshore. And then he says, if all goes as planned, we can be in Tehran by August. And I'm sitting there like writing it all down. Tehran, Tehran. George reaches forward and he turns off his microphone and he turns around and he says, did he say Tehran or did he say Baghdad? Yeah, because we have masses.

[42:38] There's a massive difference. It's a whole country difference. I said, he said Tehran and he says to me, have these people lost their fucking minds? Wow. And then he turns around and he turns the microphone back on and he just sits there. So I went back to the deputy director's office and he said, how'd the meeting go? And I said, did you know that we were going to attack Iran? And he said, he goes, these idiots have been talking about it for a few months. I can't imagine it actually happens though.

[43:11] And the only reason it didn't was because we got bogged down in southern Iraq. Yeah. When it comes to Condoleezza Rice and again, General Powell, were you surprised with the flippant nature? Obviously, you know, Condi, she's just bureaucrat at the end of the day. But with General Powell, he's seen more. He knows how difficult these things are. He's not the worst sport in many ways. Were you surprised by his cavalier attitude? Everybody was. And he has said in his memoirs and in interviews

[43:42] that this is the thing that he is the most ashamed of in his life that he should. But why did he why did he do this then? Was there was was Cheney's power that deep? Was it I mean, why was his back against the wall somehow? Don't forget that Colin Powell went from Lieutenant Colonel to four star general in four years. He was in way over his head. Wow.

[44:12] Don't forget that Condi Rice was the US government's leading expert on the Soviet Union. Well, guess what? The Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. And she didn't know the first friggin thing about Iraq. And everybody was afraid of Dick Cheney. Wow. So you're sitting there. The meeting is happening. Even by George Tenet standards, they're a little nuts. And I don't think the guy would be accused of being a peacenik anytime soon. No way. So let's just go from there. Then you understand the plan.

[44:42] You're like these folks, they are definitely aggressive. They're out of their minds, but they are motivated. And they will do what they say they'll do. What happens from here? Iraq occurs. We all know the horrific events. But perhaps just kind of talk a little bit about your experience watching that and being part of that. And then let's get to the crux of your morality, which is literally standing up against torture. Well, as busy as I was with Iraq, I maintained

[45:13] this interest in al-Qaeda. To me, this was the war we were supposed to be fighting. They had killed 3,000 Americans and were planning attacks in bin Laden's words, attacks that would dwarf 9-11. And so we had to take this very seriously. In the meantime, the policymakers are saying, no, we're going to be over here overthrowing Saddam Hussein. So I'm watching these special channel cables come in on torture.

[45:46] And then I'm saying this is wrong, wrong, wrong. There's just, I'm going to get on my soapbox. We're supposed to be a nation of laws. We're supposed to be a nation governed by the rule of law. We're supposed to be a shining beacon of hope for human rights and civil rights and civil liberties. Every year, by congressional mandate, we have to write a human rights report on every country in the world

[46:18] with which we have diplomatic relations. And then we're on those countries every year to improve their human rights. Well, what right do we have when we have a torture program? We have an archipelago of secret prisons all over the world that even the leaders of those countries didn't know existed in their own country because these were private handshake deals between George Tenet and the leaders of those intelligence services.

[46:51] What kind of country are we where we kidnap people? We snatch them off the streets and then send them to third countries to be tortured. I was all for rendition. A rendition is, let's say you're from Tunisia and I catch you in Pakistan and you don't have a passport and you don't have any plausible explanation for what you're doing in Pakistan. And I send you back to Tunisia because that's your country. That's a rendition.

[47:22] An extraordinary rendition is something entirely different. Let's say, again, you're a Tunisian and I catch you in Pakistan with no passport and no plausible explanation for what you're doing there. But I send you to Egypt or Syria. And we tell the Egyptian or Syrian intelligence services, why don't you tenderize this guy for a little bit? Let us know what he has to say. And then over the course of the next year or 18 months,

[47:54] they pull your fingernails out. They'll remove one of your testicles. Maybe they'll poke an eyeball out. They'll electrocute you. And then they write up everything that you said and they send it to us and they say, here it is. And then maybe they let you go, but they can't risk you telling people that you were in Syria or Egypt. And so you just disappear. I want to hear your thoughts on how valid the,

[48:24] I suppose, confessions are or whatever here in a second because of course, we know that torture isn't necessarily the best way of getting the truth out of folks. But you're just, let's just go to you in the office. You're getting these printouts of the techniques that are being used. Can you just tell us a little bit like, what does that look like? What are the sentences being said? Is it in graphic detail or do they? It depends. It depends who's writing it. Now, there were two notorious contractors at the CIA by the names of Mitchell and Jessen. And their reporting back was sociopathic.

[49:00] It was so clinical and so dry. It's like, everything's fine. We employed the waterboarding technique and he opened up and he gave us all this information. No, he didn't. You drowned him. He had to be revived with the use of CPR. And then he stopped talking for six months. And all the stuff that you reported in the cable, you stole from the FBI officer who actually got him to start talking because he offered him a bowl of dates, seriously.

[49:33] But then there were other people writing cables, like some of the actual CIA employees who were psychologists and psychiatrists and nurses and doctors saying, whoa, I didn't sign up for this. Nobody told me we were going to start torturing him. I want to come home. Well, that's called a curtailment. That's a career ending request to say, I want to come home. I don't want to be a part of this. You will never get promoted again, ever. And so when I saw these curtailment cables coming in,

[50:05] I thought to myself, well, somebody's going to say something. Somebody's going to blow the whistle on this. And I waited and waited and waited and waited for five and a half years. Jesus. And I resigned from the CIA in 2004 because I got a divorce and my sons were young and they moved to Ohio with my ex-wife and boys need their dad in their lives. And so I decided, if I got to choose between my kids

[50:37] and my career, that's an easy decision. So I resigned and I took a job with one of the big four consulting firms and just waited for somebody to say something. Somebody blew the whistle on the secret prisons. Somebody blew the whistle on renditions. There was even a movie called Rendition in 2005, but nobody said anything about torture. And how was that for you knowing what was happening, knowing, seeing the whitewashing? And we can talk, obviously at some point we'll talk,

[51:07] we'll get to modern day when it comes to media whitewashing and what the U.S. has done overseas. That must have made you feel almost like someone who saw a freaking alien. Yeah. Like someone who was just like, believe me, I am telling you the truth, but also I would assume you have to keep things quite close to your chest. You do. That must have torn you apart knowing the truth and not seeing one effing responsible journalist tell the truth. No, no, not a single one. And it came to a head for me in December of 2007.

[51:39] Yeah, I actually lost sleep over this. And finally, finally, Brian Ross from ABC News called me and he said that he had a source who said that I had tortured Abu Zubaydah. I said, absolutely untrue. I was the only person who was kind to Abu Zubaydah. I said, I showed him respect and he showed me respect. I was with him for 56 hours after we captured him. And I wrote extensive reporting cables on our conversations.

[52:10] I said, listen, your source is either sadly mistaken or he's a liar. I said, I never laid a hand on Abu Zubaydah or anybody else. And he said, and I had no idea this was a reporter's trick, but he said, well, you're welcome to come on the show and defend yourself. I said, I'll think about it. But in the meantime, President Bush had a press conference and a reporter said, you know, there are these rumors in the press about a torture program and Bush looks right in the camera and he goes, we do not torture like that.

[52:45] And I said to my wife, who is a senior CIA officer, I said, he is a bald-faced liar. He is looking the American people in the eye and he's just lying to us. And then a few days later, he's walking from the South Portico of the White House to get onto the helicopter to go to Camp David. And a reporter shouts a question about torture and he turns and he shouts, well, if there is torture, it's a rogue CIA officer. Oh my God.

[53:16] And I said to my wife, Brian Ross is sources at the White House and they're going to try to pin this on me. So I called Brian Ross and I said, bro, if there was a slow zoom, if it was the Truman show and you were on camera, it would have been the dun dun dun dun. Yep. When Truman sees the little thing in the ceiling, that was me. So I called Brian Ross and I said, I'll give you your interview. And I told my wife in the days leading up to it, I said, you know what? No matter what he asked me, I'm going to tell the truth.

[53:49] And so that's what I did. Well, let's talk a little bit about the truth. You did the interview. Seems as if they were trying to scapegoat you, which I would assume happens regularly. Yes. The night before the interview, what was your thought process? Were you preparing, because obviously in these moments, when the camera's on, you only have a finite amount of time. And you want to get your points across. How was that night before? And can you just sort of talk a little bit about what you decided to say?

[54:20] Yeah. I had never been on TV before. I had never done a press interview before. And I was kind of winging it. I was a little bit nervous, but I was determined to tell the truth. And I thought, you know what? The truth will set you free. Right? So irony. I, irony's right. So my wife went with me and sat just off camera. And in the interview, I made three points. I said the CIA was torturing its prisoners.

[54:52] I said that torture was official US government policy. It was not the result of a rogue. And I said that the policy had been personally approved by the president himself. And so at the end of the interview, I said to her, how did I do? She said, great. I said, I didn't say anything classified, right? And she said, no, you did great. Fast forward to January of 2020. My wife and I are divorced and we're in a custody battle.

[55:25] And I was on the stand and my lawyer asked me if she was a good wife. I said, she was an amazing wife. I said, when I blew the whistle on the torture program, she was so supportive. She sat just off camera and I told the story that I just told you. Then she gets on the stand and her lawyer says, is it true that you went with him to ABC News when he gave the whistleblowing interview? She said, yes. Why did you do that? She said, I was instructed to do it by the CIA's Office of Security.

[55:55] And I continued to report back to them on his activities. Wow. All right. So let's talk a little bit post now that there's a spy in the house. Again, if you're a check out your husband, make sure your husband's wife aren't wearing a wire. So that's a total abuse of trust. That is so sad and disgusting. I can't imagine how that made your skin crawl, to be honest, because that's disgusting. But so you do the interview and obviously once again,

[56:29] this is another life-changing moment. Can you talk about what happened post interview and how long was it before you're like, oh my God, the perversion is going to hit the fan. So as you might imagine, the very next day, the CIA filed what's called a crimes report against me with the FBI saying that I had revealed classified information. The FBI investigated me from December of 07 to December of 08. And in December of 08, they determined that I had not committed a crime. It's illegal to classify a crime.

[57:01] So if you've got a program that's illegal, a program where CIA officers are violating U.S. law, you can't classify that, right? So they sent my attorneys what's called a declination letter, declining to prosecute me. And we actually went out to dinner that night and celebrated. But three weeks later, Barack Obama is inaugurated as president and he names John Brennan, one of my old nemeses, and one of the fathers of the torture program,

[57:33] names John Brennan as the deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism. And you can watch John Brennan on MSNBC tonight. He's on Rachel Maddow talking about God knows what other useless bullshit. Yep. I had no idea that John Brennan asked the Justice Department to secretly reopen the case against me. And for the next three years, my phones were tapped, my emails were intercepted. And your wife was a spy. And my wife was spying on me. And teams of FBI agents were following me everywhere I went.

[58:05] You were being gangstocked. Did you feel like you were being driven completely and utterly insane? I had no idea any of it was happening. Wow. I really thought it was over. I really did. And so in January of 2012, I was arrested and charged with five felonies, including three counts of espionage. I hadn't committed espionage. And those charges were eventually dropped, but not before I was forced into a deal.

[58:35] And just to make matters worse, in the interim, after I blew the whistle, John Kerry hired me to be the chief investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This is a major job, serious job. And one of the great things about that job is you get to have a lunch with foreign diplomats all the time. And I used to love that part of my job overseas at the CIA. So I'm invited to lunch one day by a Japanese diplomat. And we go to this place on

[59:07] Capitol Hill. And he asks me during the course of the lunch, so what's next for you? And I said, I think I'm going to resign soon. I promised Senator Kerry I'd give him two years. It's been two and a half. I said, I have five kids. I need to I need to put them through college. Yeah. And he goes, no, don't do that. If you give me information, I can give you money. Oh, that's so obvious. I said, what's wrong with you? Are you crazy? I said, do you have

[59:38] any idea how many times I've made that pitch in my career? Shame on you. And I went directly without stopping to the office of the Senate security officer. And I said, I was just pitched by a foreign intelligence officer. And he told me to write it up. And he would send it to the FBI. So he did. The next day, two FBI agents came to interview me. And they said, look, here's what we want you to do. We want you to call them back, invite him to lunch,

[1:00:09] and try to get him to tell you exactly what information he wants and what he's willing to pay for it. I said, great. I said, you want me to like wear a wire or something? They said, no, we're going to be at the next table. I said, okay, cool. So I invite him to lunch. He says, yes. Then that morning they called me and they said that something had come up. They couldn't be at the next table, but just write him another memo and tell them what happened. So I did it. And then they asked me to do it a third time and a fourth time and a fifth time,

[1:00:42] which I did. And then he told me that he had gotten promoted. He got his dream job. He was going to be the number two in the Japanese embassy in Cairo. Nice to know you. I shook his hand and I never saw him again. Well, a year later, I've been arrested and the Justice Department releases discovery to us. And there were two things that really jumped out at us. First was that there never was any Japanese diplomat. He was an FBI agent undercover trying

[1:01:19] to get me to commit actual espionage. But every time I met him, I reported it back to the FBI. Hmm. And so finally, one of them wrote a memo and they said, clearly he's not going to take the bait. We should just end this operation. And so they did. The other thing that we found was a letter from John Brennan to Eric Holder saying, charge him with espionage. And Eric Holder wrote back and said, my people don't think he committed espionage. And then John Brennan wrote back and said,

[1:01:54] charge him anyway and make him defend himself. Jesus Christ. And they waited until I went bankrupt before they dropped the charges. Wow. Of course, when you're going against the federal government, it is impossible to outlast them. They have a 98.2% conviction rate, according to ProPublica, for that very reason, because they have unlimited resources. You don't and you can't outlast them. And it's scary as hell, man. When you're looking at these charges, I mean,

[1:02:26] assume I'm not sure what was what was the plea deal or what was the arrangement that you all ended up making? Well, at first, they offered me 45 years. And one of the US attorney, one of the assistant US attorneys. Dude, did you throw up? I would have thrown up. I seriously would have thrown up and I would have been like, I'm just I'm like, it's like South Park. It was a full time job among family and friends to not allow me to commit suicide. Wow. Yeah. I mean, people were people.

[1:03:02] My sister came down and stayed up all night long just so I didn't go downstairs to the garage and put an exhaust pipe in my mouth. And you were really, I mean, it was it was that tense. Oh, yeah, I was good. I was going to do it. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. So they went. They started at 45 and this this woman said, take a plea, Mr. Kiriakou, and you might live to meet your grandchildren. Oh, my God. That's what she told me.

[1:03:33] So I put on my bravest face and I said, I'm not doing 45 minutes. I told her. So they let a little bit, a little bit of time pass. And then they came back with 10 years. Take a plea to an espionage charge and do 10. That was on a Monday. On Wednesday, they came back with eight. And then on Friday, they came back with five. Now, my lead attorney was this legendary criminal defense attorney, Plato Kacheris. He's a he was a giant in Washington. And he said to me, you know, he said,

[1:04:07] I've been an attorney here for 52 years. And I've never seen them come down in time. Usually they make an offer 10 years. And if you say no, the next offers for 15 years, and then 20 years, right? I said, why are they coming down in time? And he said, because they have a shit case and they know it's shit, we're going to trial, he says. So I said, okay, well, then they came back with three and a half. And that was worth countering. So we countered with a year.

[1:04:40] And they said they would go two and a half, but that was best and final. So I had 24 hours to consider it. And my wife and I stayed up all night long. And I decided to turn it down. I said, I haven't done anything wrong. And as soon as I get in front of a jury, they're going to realize how ridiculous this is. I'm surprised you were able to be in the CIA with those big brass balls of yours clinging all around the hallway. It's a horrible thing to have for a spy. So I emailed them at six in the morning and I said, I've been up all night.

[1:05:14] I've read all the literature. I decided I'm turning it down. So Plato emails me and he says, these were his exact words. You stupid son of a bitch, take the deal. And then two other lawyers weighed in and one said, we're on our way to your house, put on a pot of coffee. So these were the two guys that I liked and, and respected the most. I had 11 attorneys on this team. And I mean, these are major players. This was Aiken, Gump and Strauss, one of the biggest law firms in the world.

[1:05:46] The head of their white collar defense practice was one of my three leads. So what was it about your case specifically that they were so drawn to? They believed I had been wronged. They came right out and said it. This was a political case. This was because I blew the whistle on the torture program. Right. It's Brennan's. Yeah. Brennan's. His nature. Yeah. Honestly. Oh my God. So one of them pulled me aside and said, listen, he said, if you were my own brother, I would beg you to take this deal.

[1:06:19] He said, you know what your problem is? And this is what really, this is what did it to me. He said, you know what your problem is? Your problem is you think this is about justice and it's not about justice. It's about mitigating damage. Take the deal. Wow. So I took the deal and I ended up doing 23 months. And so let's talk a little bit about that experience. I assume you turned yourself in or you weren't, you weren't. Well, at sentencing, you know, the judge took a swipe at me and she said,

[1:06:53] Mr. Kariaku, I wish that I could give you the maximum because that's what I would give you. Well, you know what? She could have given me the maximum, but every reporter, every national security reporter in Washington is a raid in the gallery there. And she's trying to look like, you know, the big defender of the intelligence community. Not her job, by the way. Yeah, not her job, exactly. But she's a former prosecutor, just like all the other judges are. So my attorneys asked her to send me to a minimum security work camp.

[1:07:28] No bars on the windows, no fences, the doors unlocked. You're free to come and go as you please. You're just on your honor not to abscond. And so the prosecutors had no objection. So she ordered that I be sent to the federal work camp at Loretto, Pennsylvania, in central Pennsylvania, the mountains. So I drive up there. It's crazy. You just, you knock on the door and you say, I'm here to turn myself in. So I went to the camp and I knocked on the door. I said, I'm John Kariaku.

[1:08:00] I'm supposed to turn myself in. And the guy says, you need to go across the street to the prison. They'll process you there. And then they'll walk you back over here. I said, okay. So everybody that, you know, we had a caravan. There was like a documentary film crew and two of my lawyers and my cousin and his son. And so they all drive away. I go to the prison and, you know, they pat me down and they put me through the metal detector. And then

[1:08:33] the guy cuffs me and he starts taking me around to the back of the prison. And I said, no, no, no. I'm supposed to be at the camp across the street. And he said, not according to my paperwork, you're not. And I was like, oh my God, I said, take it easy. There's nothing you can do. If you, if you, you know, put up a fight, they're going to put you in solitary. So don't say anything. So I didn't. It took me five days to get access to a phone.

[1:09:04] What was that like when he put the cuffs on you? What was that feeling like? Did you panic and alone? Yeah. Yeah. Panic. Because nobody had any idea where I was. Everybody thought I was, you know, at the camp, I'm working at the university in town, you know, sweeping the library or whatever. Oh no, I'm not. So I called my lawyers and I said, hey, they put me in the actual prison with the pedophiles and the drug king pins and the mafia dons. What do I do? And he said, oh my

[1:09:35] God, he said, 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. Oh my God. Well, it's the wrong jail. Yeah. So I decided that moment that I was trained for this. I had lived in far worse places than Loretto, Pennsylvania. And that I was going to use my CIA training to make sure that I stayed safe and at the very top of the prison social heap.

[1:10:08] And that's what I did. And can you explain a little bit? Because one thing to say it, another thing to do it. What techniques did you use to survive? Well, this is the subject of my second book. I called it Doing Time Like a Spy, How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison. And I start the book off with 20 life lessons that the CIA taught me. And some of them were kind of tongue in cheek, like admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations. But some were serious, like let others do your dirty

[1:10:39] work. And I'll give you an example. There was a guy, I had an empty bed in my cubicle in my cell. And this guy wanted to move into the cell. Well, I didn't want to, we didn't allow pedophiles in our cell, right? No pedophiles was my rule. Of course. So I said to him, we used to call him cat in the hat, because he had a really weird, like elongated head,

[1:11:09] like a birth defect, right? Okay. So I said, well, what's your crime? He said, murder for hire. And I said, ooh, that doesn't sound so great. I said, explain yourself. And he said that he had a lot of gambling debts. He owed the mafia in Pittsburgh, $100,000 in gambling debts. And he took out a life insurance policy on his business partner. He hired a hit man. The guy

[1:11:42] flew in from New Orleans and killed his business partner and then flew back to New Orleans. But the first person the cops are going to look at is, who is it that has a life insurance policy on the guy that's been murdered? Always. Always. So of course, three days later, they arrest him and he immediately rats out the hit man. And I said, oh, wait a minute. So not only are you a murderer, but you're a rat. And rats have to sit at the pedophile table in the cafeteria. So I don't want any rat in my

[1:12:15] room. So forget it. Well, he didn't like me, not even a little bit. Okay. So put that aside. There was another guy in there that went by the nickname truck because he had been a long-distance truck driver. Okay. Truck was a very, very dangerous guy. He would just, like he had pedophiles in his cell and they'd be sleeping and he would just start beating the shit out of them while they were sleeping, you know, just because. Right, right. So

[1:12:51] truck for whatever reason desperately sought my approval. He claimed he had been in the CIA and it was all just nonsense he had seen from movies that he was just repeating back to me. But the reason I didn't like this guy is in the 70s, on his long-distance truck route, truck stop prostitutes began turning up dead. Right. Strangled. All of them just found in the bush on the side of the highway. One day truck picks up a prostitute who happened to be 16 years old and he had sex with her and

[1:13:27] he strangled her and threw her out of the truck and she lived and she was able to identify him. Well, the cops knew that he was a serial killer. They knew that he had been the one murdering these prostitutes and there were 14 of them that he had killed. But these were the days before DNA and so they just couldn't prove it. So they got him on the kidnapping charge and they sentenced him to 20 years and he did the whole 20 and he got out in the 90s. But the cops had it out for him because they knew he was the

[1:13:59] serial killer. So they worked with his parole officer to harass him, to just wake him up all hours of the day and night, search his house, which you have to submit to because you're on parole. Well, sure enough, they found a gun in his house and in response, he beat up the parole officer and was arrested. So they violated him for the assault and they gave him time for the

[1:14:32] gun and it came to another 20 years. Okay. Okay. So even though he was never convicted of murder, he was doing 40 years in prison. Okay. And he was a serial killer. And he was a serial killer. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I didn't like this guy. And he always, always wanted to sit next to me in the TV room. Like he would say stuff like, hey, John, I know you like classic rock and there's a new classic rock station. It's on 1510 a.m. Like, okay, thanks truck. All right. I'd sit in the TV room. Hey, John, are you

[1:15:09] going to watch the Steelers game today? I'm going to watch the Steelers game. I'm going to sit next to you. Okay, truck. So one day there's an announcement, you know, Kiriyaku report to the lieutenant's office. You never want to hear your name and the order to report to the lieutenant's office because for most people, that means you're going to go to solitary. They got you doing something. You're going to solitary. For me, it was that NPR called and they wanted an interview. Oh, okay. That's worse. It's slightly more boring than solitary. Isn't that interesting? So I had to sign a waiver to allow NPR to come to the prison to interview me.

[1:15:45] So I go back up to the TV room and I'm sitting there next to truck and I'm three feet away from cat in the hat, but his back is to me. He's at the computers doing email. He doesn't know that I'm three feet away from him. And he turns to the guy next to him and he said, did you hear they called Kiriyaku to the lieutenant's office? He goes, that guy's a fucking rat. He went down there to rat us out. Well, you call somebody a rat blood's going to be spilled.

[1:16:18] But I didn't I didn't react at all. I just sat there and truck says, did you hear that fucker just called you a rat? And I said, yeah, a couple of hours ago, I heard him call you a pedophile, which I completely made up. He stood up juicy gossip. He stood up and he beat this guy to within an inch of his life. People scattered like cockroaches, which is what you do when

[1:16:49] there's a fight so you don't get right called to the lieutenant's office. I just sat there and watched the Steelers game. Right? This is three feet away from me. He beat him into a coma. Geez. So I get called down to the lieutenant's office. And the lieutenant says, why don't you tell me about that fight? I said, there was a fight. Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations. He says, you know, damn well, there was a fight. I said, I don't know anything about a fight. I've been watching the Steelers all day.

[1:17:24] And he says, we saw you on camera sitting there while the fight was taking place three feet away from you. And I said, yeah, maybe that was you that was sitting there watching the fight. I was watching the Steelers. Do you ever think of that? Where were you when the fight was going on? Mm hmm. Make counter accusations. Right. And he says, get the fuck out of my office. That's right. So that's how you serve. So and that is the technique you use to survive. Cat in the Hat was a problem.

[1:17:56] So truck was a problem. Truck was sent. Truck got another five years for the assault and was upgraded to a medium security prison, which is which is tough time. Right. Cat in the Hat was in the hospital for several weeks. And then he was in solitary for a month. And and he came back and everybody, everybody told him what had happened. So he walks up to me like this and he goes, I just wanted to apologize that I called you a rat.

[1:18:30] I shouldn't have done it. And I'll never do it again. And I said, listen to me, because I'm going to just say this once, if I ever hear my name cross your lips ever again, you're dead. Do you understand? He goes, yes, I understand. Nobody fucked with me ever. Right. I mean, it's a powerful, it's a powerful realization to know that when you're in prison,

[1:19:04] you have to do what you have to do. You have to survive. And the fact that the CIA and those techniques you were able to utilize, I suppose, again, speaking of irony on top of irony, it's because of the people in charge of the CIA specifically Schmuck, John Brennan that you're there. But at the same time, you also got to harness the skills they taught you to survive in prison, a situation that they put you in. It could have been far, far worse. And, you know, to make things even better, I was sort of adopted by the Italians. And when I say Italians, I mean Italians named Gambino, Lucchese, Banana. Yeah, Colombo.

[1:19:40] And I sat with them at their table. We're still friends. When we all got out, we had a big frigging party at Atlantic City. And wow, no oyster was saved that night. You might not think about oil and natural gas, but it's a big part of your daily routine. From the soap you use to your toothpaste, even your bed sheets, more than 6000 everyday products are made using oil and natural gas. Companies like Energy Transfer work behind the scenes, safely transporting these resources across

[1:20:14] the country through a network of underground pipelines. Learn more at ittakesenergy.com. So, can you talk a little bit when you were suffering in prison? Did you ever think about

[1:20:58] the people who were tortured? Did you ever think, oh, shit, man, I can survive this because I know what other people have had to go through and that's why I'm here. Did you feel like you were an advocate even in the time when you were struggling? Did that, I mean, I guess in any way, give you any kind of peace? Or if they could fucking deal with it, I can deal with it? It is. It did give me peace. There were two things, actually, that I took great solace from. One was, they can beat me down as much as they want to try, but my commitment is to human rights

[1:21:35] and civil rights and civil liberties. And by God, we've got a constitution. And if you're not going to charge these people with a crime, you have to let them go. I don't like their politics either, but they have the same constitutional rights that I do. So, my message was absolutely consistent, regardless of what happened to me. What year did you get out of prison? 2015. February. So, 2015, obviously, we're in the midst of a tumultuous, whether it be

[1:22:11] RNC primary, DNC primary, which kind of happened, didn't really happen. Although, Bernie did show up kind of out of the blue to give Hillary a little bit of a competition anyway, which was nice. Thank God. You're back. It's 2015. You see Brennan. He's only gotten more power. You see the intelligence state permeate itself through all corporate media. Just kind of bring us, well, let's just get to now throughout this past six-year period. What are your thoughts on

[1:22:42] the integration of the intelligence agencies within our corporate media again and just our everyday lives from a policy and just a human perspective? We just had the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks a week and a half ago, and so many people have asked me if I had been doing a lot of media. And I said, oh, my gosh, I talked to news outlets from Russia, China, Greece, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands,

[1:23:13] Ireland, the UK, even Paraguay, not a single US outlet, not a single one, because they have their retired generals and their retired NSA directors and their retired CIA directors. I mean, that's who runs the media. I mean, MSNBC likes to think that it's progressive. It's not at all progressive. It's a corporatist news channel. CNN's the same way. How many retired

[1:23:46] four-star generals can you fit on one screen? They'll find a way. And Fox is the same way. It's all about the status quo. The one thing I say at least Fox is like, we're run by the intelligence agents, at least they're like, very upfront about it. So you know what you're getting. That's true. When it comes to, we talk about, obviously, you just wrote a great article about treason and us kind of throwing around the term treason when it comes to General Milley making a phone call to a Chinese counterpart after January 6th, being like, I'm going to worry Trump might start a war or something like that.

[1:24:20] As far as where we are now, where are your thoughts on, I'm just, where are your thoughts on, I don't even want to use the term chickens coming home to roost. I want to use, where are your thoughts on the CIA, the intelligence agencies, kind of using the techniques that we have used overseas and then Afghanistan. And then now as we see this ever turning tide, we were rationalizing under the guise of domestic terrorism, which obviously is a real thing. But under that guise, we are seeing a lot of the cameras and guns turn

[1:24:54] inwards. Can you talk a little bit about or perhaps you don't think that, but what do you think about the modern intelligence agencies and even the larger to build on top of that question? We talked about MSNBC, CNN, Fox News. What about Facebook? We talked about this on last episode where you have, it wasn't Brennan, but it was Leon Panetta lobbying for Facebook. Yeah, Leon Panetta lobbying for Facebook. We're going to see, you know, they're making billions of dollars and now these intelligence agencies don't want to break up Big Tech. Can you talk a little bit about where you see it? Is this all just a PSYOP?

[1:25:28] You know, these relationships between the intelligence community and Big Tech go back to the creation of Big Tech. You know, the director of security at Microsoft is a 30-plus year CIA veteran. The CIA is represented throughout Big Tech. It's quite common for senior CIA officers to retire and immediately move to Silicon Valley and take up senior positions, whether it's Facebook or Microsoft or Google or, you know, whatever. Besides that. I mean, I guess that begs the

[1:26:02] question though and apologize for my ignorance, but why? Money, money, money, money. It's all about the money. Yeah, you can make five, six times what you made at the agency by working for tech. Has Facebook done more to collect human data than the CIA could ever imagine? Absolutely. Absolutely. The CIA has to salivate it with what Facebook is able to do. With Facebook, you're offering up your information, your volunteer information. Here's my manifesto. Yeah, it's always been funny to me that so many Americans think

[1:26:33] that Facebook is free. Facebook's not free. The cost is crazy high. You know, you're giving them... Listen, I had a conversation with a buddy of mine the other day and I was saying that every time I read an article like this one about treason, I get death threats. And he said, and this is just us on the phone. He said, you know what you need? You need a concealed carry permit. I said, I used to have a concealed carry permit, but I'm a felon now and it's an eight-year mandatory minimum if you get caught with a gun.

[1:27:03] And we hung up and I went on Facebook and literally every single advertisement was for a concealed carry class. Oh no. How do you trust anyone? Is your friend... I mean, how do you trust anyone anymore? After knowing that the woman... I'm assuming you had sex with her. Three kids? After living with the spy. Three children. Unbelievable. Can you trust anyone? Do you trust anyone? I can't imagine ever getting married again. I just can't imagine it. Wow.

[1:27:34] But even friendships. Even the felon that spoke with one of them. No, I don't trust anybody. No. And what kind of life is that? It's awful, isn't it? It's awful. It's sad. I mean, this was... I'm going to sound kind of corny right now, but she was the love of my life. I've never been in love with anybody like I was in love with her. And the betrayal is just something you can't get past. She wasn't a plant, right? It was just a... It was her job, basically.

[1:28:08] Yeah, it was her job. You know, there's an NSA whistleblower by the name of Tom Drake. Tom's legendary among national security whistleblowers. And he was arrested and charged with seven counts of espionage for blowing the whistle on warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. And so on the day of his arrest, the FBI went to his wife, who was also an NSA officer, and they said, we are raiding your house and arresting your husband right now as we speak.

[1:28:41] You're either with us or you're with him. And she said, I'm with you. Wow. And she took his five kids and he was on his own. And the truth of the matter is he hadn't committed espionage. And so all of the charges against him were dropped. But how can you ever go back to what you thought was a happy marriage? You can't... Makes you freaking sick. It's disgusting. Yeah. It's so, so sad. So just sort of lastly, number one, thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you.

[1:29:11] Just sort of lastly, as far as so we can all be more intelligent, when it comes to the intelligence community, you look at the billions and billions of dollars when it comes to what's funneling through the Fed right now, which we have no idea where that money goes. What do we as civilians need to know when it comes to the intelligence communities and how pervasive they are? Know that the intelligence community is spying on you, right? It's not just illegal for NSA to spy on Americans.

[1:29:42] It's in NSA's charter that it can't spy on Americans. And that's practically all that it does is spy on Americans. Everything changed after 9-11. They're getting away with it. The FBI spies on Americans. Now we've got these little intelligence organizations that we didn't even know we had. For example, the Postmaster General's Inspector General Office is spying on Americans, right? Yeah, we talked about there's 22 different police precincts just in Washington.

[1:30:13] See? I mean, did you know that the EPA and the Department of Education have SWAT teams? Is that really necessary for the Department of Education to have a SWAT team that's dressed like Robocop? So, you know, where the CIA itself, and I'm not making excuses, this is just real life, the CIA itself is more focused on collecting foreign intelligence. Everybody else is spying on us. Everybody.

[1:30:44] Travis, did you have anything? I'm sorry. I didn't let you get in here. I mean, it's a fascinating man with a fascinating story. Obviously, John, thank you for everything you've done with us here today. I do actually have kind of a full circle question. I know when we were on the road with the Liberty Tour in 2016, you told me about when you were recruited on a college campus. And I thought back, you know, I went to Ohio University, which is the number one party school in America that time. So I imagine if anyone even said anything remotely, trying to recruit me, I probably would be like, oh, cool, you want to go do some

[1:31:15] bong rips? He's just the kind of guy we want. Yeah. So I don't know if I'm CIA material, but what do you say? You know, kind of put yourself back as young John. And what do you say? A lot of young people listen to our show. What do you say to young people now who may or may not be recruited by the CIA? I mean, it almost seems like that cliche from the Matrix. Yeah. You know, Travis, I'm of two minds. Looking back, if I could do it again,

[1:31:48] I would run screaming from the room, right? On the other hand, I'm a realist, and as much as I believe that we don't need a CIA and it should be disbanded, it's not going to be disbanded. And the only two ways to really change the CIA is if you're a member of one of the two congressional oversight committees, or you join the CIA and change it from the inside. Now, I don't know if either one of those is a recipe for success, but that's pretty much the hand that we've been dealt.

[1:32:20] Yeah. Seems like it's also a recipe for the intelligence agency to come down on you with the almighty hammer of the United States government. Got that right. Wow. Fernando, did you have anything? I have a question in terms of just activism or just being an activist. Do you recommend it knowing that, you know, with Facebook and everyone watching, do you think everyone should step away? No. How do we be active? Yeah, that's a good point. How do we rage against social media without being on social media, or is it one of those horrible conundrums?

[1:32:52] It is a horrible conundrum, but I'm 1000 percent supportive of activism. We can't live in fear of these people. We can't live in fear of big tech. We especially can't live in fear of the intelligence community. You know, we're Americans and we have rights and I'm willing to fight for those rights. Yeah, rather than just either give them away or see them chipped away little by little by the likes of the Patriot Act. I'm in for the fight. Thank you for fighting for our rights. Thank you. Thank you guys. John Carriacou.

[1:33:24] Thank you so much for being on the show, man. That was awesome. Thanks for the invitation. All right, there it was, everyone. Our conversation with John. What a fantastic man. He's a good man. He did a good thing for the country and it's just a shame, you know, what our government will try to do to you if you try to do the right thing. It really is. I'm scared. The whole time I was shocking in gasp and horror and now I don't know what to do, Ben, because they're watching me. Yeah. I mean, thankfully we're

[1:33:55] recording ourselves, so if the CIA that's listening has any better audio, let us know. Yeah. We need more sound effects here. Yeah. Anyway, thank you all so much for listening to this episode and I can't wait to hear your feedback and yeah, support John. Carriacou. Carriacou and yeah, we have to stay vigilant, but again, it is a massive Goliath and most of the time, unfortunately, David doesn't win. All right, everyone. Well, thank you so much

[1:34:25] for listening. We hope you're doing well out there and we'll keep on fighting the good fight and thanks to all of the heroes out there, Chelsea Manning and the reality winner, Edward Snowden. Obviously, Julian Assange, perhaps he got a little corrupted this thread and that and the other, but the intention was good and there's a lot of people out there who are trying to expose some of the horrors that we see on a regular basis and let's not forget what happens overseas will someday happen here and we have to be vigilant

[1:34:56] and to hold these people accountable because it's just, it's a scary thought. Scary thought, but it's a fight worth fighting and that's why it's nice to be here. It's the only option you have. It's all we can do and that's why John is so inspiring. Absolutely. All right, everyone. Well, thank you so much for listening. Hope you're doing well out there. Staying healthy and safe. We'll see you on the road real soon. Hail yourselves. We'll talk to you soon.