# Failure to accept responsibility

> **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: "Failure to accept responsibility," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/failure-to-accept-responsibility/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The federal sentencing enhancement that John Kiriakou says explains why 98 per cent of federal criminal cases end in a plea bargain: a defendant who refuses a deal, goes to trial and loses has time added to the sentence for failing to accept responsibility.*

- **Name he gives:** Failure to accept responsibility
- **Effect:** Added time after a lost trial
- **Plea rate he cites:** 98% of federal criminal cases
- **Source:** DeProgram, 30 October 2025

Asked why anyone makes a deal with federal prosecutors when the government has so often reneged, [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) gave a mechanical answer rather than a psychological one. Roughly 98 per cent of federal criminal cases end in a plea bargain, he said, and the reason is a feature of the federal sentencing guidelines.[1]

## The mechanism

In his description, a defendant who turns down a deal, goes to trial and is found guilty does not simply receive whatever sentence the offence carries. The court adds time — an enhancement applied, in the phrase he quotes, for *"failure to accept responsibility."*[2]

The practical effect he describes is that the trial itself carries a price. The choice put to a defendant is not between a negotiated sentence and the sentence the law prescribes, but between a negotiated sentence and a longer one imposed for having contested the charge.

## The constitutional objection

His co-host put the obvious objection to him: that this punishes a defendant for exercising the constitutional right to defend himself, and so ought to be unconstitutional. Kiriakou agreed — *"That's right. Yes, you're exactly right"* — and then hedged, saying he assumed the question had already been adjudicated, and adding a single word: *"unfortunately."*[2]

He does not name a case or a court. The hedge is characteristic: he states the mechanism as something he knows from the inside of the federal system and declines to claim more than that about the case law.

## Where it sits in his own account

The exchange arose out of a discussion of [Ghislaine Maxwell](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ghislaine-maxwell)'s failed Supreme Court appeal and, before that, of the plea Kiriakou himself took. His co-host had raised his case directly, noting that the government had told him he was going to a camp and then sent him to a real prison, and asked why anyone trusts the feds not to renege. The enhancement is Kiriakou's answer to that question: people take deals not because they trust prosecutors but because the arithmetic of refusing is worse.[1]

## See also

## See also

- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Federal plea coercion](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/federal-plea-coercion)
- [Ghislaine Maxwell](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ghislaine-maxwell)
- [Eastern District of Virginia](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/eastern-district-of-virginia)

## Sources

1. Deprogram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Hamas Has Won" (2025-10-30), at 51:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ1gVL3EvcU&t=3098s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-30-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-ham/
2. Deprogram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Hamas Has Won" (2025-10-30), at 52:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ1gVL3EvcU&t=3128s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-30-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-ham/

---

From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/failure-to-accept-responsibility/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt