Brian Ross is an American investigative journalist and seven-time Emmy Award winner who, while at ABC News, conducted the December 2007 on-camera interview that produced the first public confirmation by a U.S. official that the CIA had waterboarded prisoners.
How the interview came about
Kiriakou traces the immediate backdrop to the CIA’s destruction of its torture tapes: he says Gina Haspel — who later became CIA director during Trump’s first term, and who had previously served as commandant at “Site Green,” a black site, giving her a personal stake in their destruction — oversaw the project, and that the tapes were physically destroyed in an industrial grinder.[1] By his account, in December 2007 his career and second marriage were going well and he had largely stopped thinking about al-Qaeda since leaving the agency, when he received the call from Ross.[2]
In December 2007 — three and a half years after John Kiriakou left the CIA — Ross called him out of the blue. Kiriakou had never spoken to a reporter before. Ross said he had a source who claimed Kiriakou had personally tortured Abu Zubaydah. Kiriakou’s response: “That was absolutely false. I was the only person who was kind to Abu Zubaydah. I’ve never laid a hand on Abu Zubaydah or any other prisoner.” Ross’s reply: “Well, you’re welcome to come on the show and defend yourself.” Kiriakou did not at the time recognize this as a reporter’s standard technique.[3][4]
”Brian Ross’s source is at the White House”
In the days between Ross’s call and Kiriakou’s response, President Bush gave a press conference and looked directly into the camera and said: “We do not torture.” Kiriakou told his wife — herself a senior CIA officer — “He is a bald-faced liar. He’s looking the American people in the eye and he’s lying to us.” Two days later, on Friday, Bush left the South Portico of the White House for Camp David. A reporter shouted a torture question. Bush stopped, turned, and said: “Well, if there is torture, it’s because of a rogue CIA officer.” Kiriakou said to his wife: “Brian Ross’s source is at the White House and they’re going to pin this on me.” He called Ross and agreed to the interview.[5][6][7]
What Kiriakou said on camera
At the ABC News studios on Dale Street in Washington, Kiriakou decided that whatever Ross asked — and Ross had not told him in advance what the questions would be — he would tell the truth. He made three statements that changed the course of the rest of his life: that the CIA was torturing its prisoners; that torture was official U.S. government policy, not the result of any rogue officer; and that the policy had been personally approved by the president.[8]
The aftermath
Within twenty-four hours of the interview, the CIA filed what is called a crimes report against Kiriakou with the FBI. The FBI investigated from December 2007 to December 2008, then sent Kiriakou’s attorney a declination letter — the information was already public via Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and “torture is a crime, and it is illegal to classify a crime for the purpose of keeping it from the American people.”[9]
Three to four weeks later, Barack Obama was elected president. He named John Brennan Deputy National Security Adviser for Counterterrorism. Brennan sent a memo to Attorney General Eric Holder instructing him to charge Kiriakou with espionage. When Holder’s lawyers concluded Kiriakou had not committed espionage, Brennan wrote back: “Charge him anyway and make him defend himself.”[10]
Kiriakou’s one regret
Kiriakou has said the one thing he would have done differently was to retain an attorney before speaking to Ross. He expected the interview to be a one-day story. Instead it extended through approximately fifty follow-up interviews, each pushing closer to classified material — generating criticism when he declined to add new disclosures. He has consistently maintained the original disclosure was correct and necessary — “somebody had to say something. We were committing a war crime, a crime against humanity” — but that managing the aftermath without professional guidance was a mistake.[11]
Aftermath: banned from MSNBC
Kiriakou says he was later banned from MSNBC in an incident unrelated to Ross but downstream of the same public identity the Ross interview created. Booked for a pre-taped segment, he was fitted with a microphone and told the interview would start with a co-guest; host Ari Melber then turned to Kiriakou on air and introduced him as “convicted felon John Kuryaku” without warning. Kiriakou said “Motherfucker” — a note he says he had written to himself off-script but which the host picked up — stood, and ripped off his microphone.[12]
”The Brian Ross initial Abu Zubaydah claim was wrong”
In the original 2007 interview, Kiriakou stated that Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded once and that it had worked. He now describes this as incorrect. The basis for the statement: Mitchell and Jessen had reported to the CIA that they waterboarded Zubaydah once and he produced intelligence. The reality, revealed only in 2005 by the CIA Inspector General and declassified in 2009, was that FBI interrogator Ali Soufan had been getting actionable intelligence from Zubaydah daily through rapport-based interrogation, and Mitchell and Jessen had pulled Soufan’s cables from the incompatible FBI computer system and retyped them as their own product.[13][14]
The 2007 call and Bush’s denial
John Kiriakou says ABC’s Brian Ross called him in 2007 with a source claiming Kiriakou had tortured Abu Zubaydah. He initially declined an interview — until Bush told a press conference “we do not torture,” then blamed any torture on “a rogue CIA officer.” Kiriakou told his wife, “Brian Ross’s source is at the White House and they’re going to try to pin this on me,” and decided to give the interview and “just tell the truth.”[15][16][17]