# Jim Bamford

> **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: "Jim Bamford," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jim-bamford/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The author John Kiriakou credits with having written the definitive book on the NSA and with first making Americans aware of the surveillance state. Kiriakou highlights Bamford's 2023 book Spy Fail for a claim he says should have been front-page news and was not: that the FBI lost ten of its Chinese sources because Peter Strzok's counterintelligence unit had a Chinese mole inside it.*

- **Known for:** 'Really the definitive book on NSA'
- **2023 book:** *Spy Fail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence*
- **Claim Kiriakou highlights:** A Chinese mole inside [Peter Strzok](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/peter-strzok)'s FBI counterintelligence unit
- **Kiriakou's reaction:** 'Why isn't this front-page news?'

**Jim Bamford** is an American author whom [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) describes as *"a gifted writer and researcher, who wrote really the definitive book on NSA years ago."*[1]

On the day of this interview Bamford published *Spy Fail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence*, and Kiriakou raised it unprompted for one finding in particular.[2]

## The mole in the counterintelligence unit

*"Over the last 10 years, the FBI has lost 10 of its China intelligence sources. 10 people have been either killed by the Chinese government or arrested for working on behalf of the FBI. Why is that? Because [Peter Strzok](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/peter-strzok)'s counterintelligence unit at the FBI had a Chinese mole in it."*[3]

The mole, on Bamford's account as Kiriakou relays it, was *"a former CIA operations officer who was directed to go to the CIA and then later on to the FBI as a Chinese translator. This guy was arrested quietly in 2019 and is awaiting trial in Hawaii, of all places."*[4]

## What Kiriakou takes from the silence

His reaction is directed at the press rather than at the bureau: *"Why isn't this front-page news? There was a Chinese mole inside the FBI and we're now just learning about it thanks to Jim Bamford? That tells me that there's something grossly wrong with the mainstream media here."*[5]

## See also

- [Peter Strzok](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/peter-strzok)
- [NSA Surveillance](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/nsa-surveillance)
- [The death of investigative journalism](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/death-of-investigative-journalism)
- [FBI](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fbi)

## Sources

1. ScheerPost (2023-01-20), at 19:49. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT8DwRsee84&t=1189s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-01-20-scheerpost-scheerpost/
2. ScheerPost (2023-01-20), at 20:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT8DwRsee84&t=1220s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-01-20-scheerpost-scheerpost/
3. ScheerPost (2023-01-20), at 20:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT8DwRsee84&t=1251s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-01-20-scheerpost-scheerpost/
4. ScheerPost (2023-01-20), at 21:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT8DwRsee84&t=1281s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-01-20-scheerpost-scheerpost/
5. ScheerPost (2023-01-20), at 21:52. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT8DwRsee84&t=1312s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-01-20-scheerpost-scheerpost/

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