# The IRS audits of 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: "The IRS audits of Kiriakou," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/irs-audits-of-kiriakou/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou says that within weeks of his December 2007 ABC News interview confirming CIA waterboarding he was audited by the Internal Revenue Service, and that he was audited again every single year thereafter. He places the audits alongside FBI surveillance and repeated CIA criminal referrals as part of a single pattern of retaliation that preceded his prosecution by five years.*

- **Began:** Within weeks of the December 2007 ABC News interview
- **Frequency:** Every year thereafter, by his account
- **Stated in:** January 2013, days after sentencing
- **Companion measures:** CIA criminal referrals, FBI surveillance, security-clearance obstruction

Among the consequences [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) attributes to his December 2007 disclosure of the [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) torture program, the earliest was fiscal rather than criminal. The Justice Department had declined the agency's first criminal referral on the ground that the information was already public, but he says, *"immediately, within weeks, I was audited by the IRS. I've been audited by the IRS every single year since giving that interview in 2007."*[1]

He made the statement in January 2013, days after being sentenced to thirty months, which places the run of audits at five consecutive years by that point and puts them five years ahead of the [Espionage Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/espionage-act) charges eventually brought against him. He does not claim direct knowledge of who initiated them; he lists them factually, in sequence with the [crimes reports](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-crimes-reports) the agency filed after each of his public appearances and the [FBI](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fbi) surveillance he and his wife lived under.[1][2]

## The earliest account

The audits appear in the corpus as early as February 2013, given as the second half of a sentence about the criminal investigation rather than as a separate grievance: the Justice Department began investigating him the day after the December 2007 interview and never stopped, and *"in addition, I've even been audited by the IRS every single year since I gave that interview."* Asked whether that was a chilling effect, he agreed and called it *"a program of harassment."*[3][4]

*Transcription note: the 2013 auto-caption renders the verb as "honored by the IRS." The reading is unambiguous from the sentence and from the rest of the corpus, and the artifact is flagged rather than silently repaired.*

## See also

- [CIA crimes reports against Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-crimes-reports)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Brian Ross](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/brian-ross)
- [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 32:37. 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/
3. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou  'If I Tortured, I'd Be Free' (2013-02-15), at 06:18. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUl2cHLx9Ug&t=378s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-02-15-michael-h-rhee-cia-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-if-i-tortured/
4. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou  'If I Tortured, I'd Be Free' (2013-02-15), at 06:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUl2cHLx9Ug&t=410s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-02-15-michael-h-rhee-cia-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-if-i-tortured/

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