# CIA crimes reports against Kiriakou > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "CIA crimes reports against Kiriakou," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-crimes-reports/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The referral mechanism by which the Central Intelligence Agency asked the Justice Department to investigate John Kiriakou, used not once but repeatedly, by his account after every op-ed, television interview and university speech he gave following his 2007 disclosure of the torture program. The Justice Department declined every time, and Kiriakou treats the pattern as retaliation conducted through a lawful channel.* - **What it is:** A referral from the CIA asking the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation - **First filed:** Within 24 hours of the December 2007 ABC News interview - **Alleged offence:** Revealing classified information, the torture program itself - **Trigger thereafter:** Each op-ed, television interview or campus speech - **Outcome each time:** Justice Department found no classified information had been revealed - **Collateral target:** Kiriakou''s wife, then a serving CIA officer A **crimes report** is a referral from the [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) to the Justice Department asking that a criminal investigation be opened. In [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s case the mechanism was used repeatedly over five years, and he describes the pattern rather than any single filing as the substance of the retaliation against him. ## The first one Within twenty-four hours of the December 2007 interview in which Kiriakou told [Brian Ross](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/brian-ross) that the CIA was waterboarding prisoners and that it was official United States government policy, the agency filed a crimes report against him with the Justice Department, saying he had revealed classified information, the torture program, and asking for an investigation *"with an eye toward prosecuting me."* The Justice Department decided at the time that he had not revealed classified information, on the ground that the information was already in the public domain.[1] ## Then every time he spoke The first referral was not the last. *"Every time I would write an op-ed, every time I would give a television interview or give a speech at a university, the CIA would file a crimes report against me accusing me of leaking additional classified information."* Each time, Kiriakou says, the Justice Department determined that he had not leaked anything, a finding made easier by the fact that he had submitted the op-eds and the speeches to the agency's own [Publications Review Board](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/publications-review-board) for clearance in advance.[2] ## The book drafts The clearest instance of the pattern, in a 2017 telling, is the manuscript of [*The Reluctant Spy*](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-reluctant-spy). Kiriakou says he went *"completely by the book"*: each time he finished a draft he sent it to the [Publications Review Board](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/publications-review-board), which either returned it with passages blacked out or wrote back to say it looked good. He did this **eleven times**, and the board redacted about ninety pages, turning what would have been a 310-page book into a 220-page one.[3] What he did not know was that the submissions were themselves being treated as offences. *"Every time I was sending in a new draft they were filing a crimes report, it's called, against me with the FBI saying that I was violating the law by putting this stuff on paper."*[4] He sets that against how the process is meant to work: when the board objects, the author deletes the passage and negotiates different language. *"Instead, they set out to target me pretty early on in the book process."*[4] ## Extension to his wife The referrals then reached [Heather Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/heather-kiriakou), at the time a senior CIA officer. The agency accused her of leaking classified information to her husband for the purpose of an op-ed he had written. His answer was that the material in the piece had come from two United Press International reports and from a South American foreign ministry's website, at which point *"they would back off."*[2] ## What the pattern amounted to Kiriakou describes the cumulative effect as a life rather than a case: surveillance by the [FBI](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fbi), his wife summoned to the CIA's office of security, and difficulty obtaining a security clearance when he went to work on Capitol Hill. *"It just became this pattern of harassment."* Asked why he did not simply stop, he answered that torture was a subject about which the country should be having a national debate, that writing an op-ed and giving a speech are not against the law, and that *"I didn't want to be cowed, I didn't want to be frightened into silence by the CIA."*[5][6] ## See also - [Publications Review Board](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/publications-review-board) - [Espionage Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/espionage-act) - [Brian Ross](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/brian-ross) - [Heather Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/heather-kiriakou) - [The chilling effect of whistleblower prosecutions](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/chilling-effect-of-whistleblower-prosecutions) ## Sources 1. aggregator channel — likely re-upload (2015-01-09), at 31:35. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tUetLWC54&t=1895s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-01-09-terrorpedia-video-center-aggregator-channel-likely-re-upload/ 2. aggregator channel — likely re-upload (2015-01-09), at 32:06. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tUetLWC54&t=1926s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-01-09-terrorpedia-video-center-aggregator-channel-likely-re-upload/ 3. John Kiriakou Ex CIA Spy Tells All (2017-08-11), at 09:11. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soundcloud337497090&t=551s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-11-kate-dalley-radio-john-kiriakou-ex-cia-spy-tells-all/ 4. John Kiriakou Ex CIA Spy Tells All (2017-08-11), at 09:42. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soundcloud337497090&t=582s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-11-kate-dalley-radio-john-kiriakou-ex-cia-spy-tells-all/ 5. aggregator channel — likely re-upload (2015-01-09), at 32:37. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tUetLWC54&t=1957s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-01-09-terrorpedia-video-center-aggregator-channel-likely-re-upload/ 6. aggregator channel — likely re-upload (2015-01-09), at 33:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tUetLWC54&t=1988s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-01-09-terrorpedia-video-center-aggregator-channel-likely-re-upload/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-crimes-reports/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt