Jim Moran, a twelve-term Democratic congressman from Northern Virginia, was John Kiriakou’s own representative, and by Kiriakou’s account one of the very few elected officials who did anything for him during and after his prosecution under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
One of three names
Asked whether any elected officials were sympathetic, Kiriakou’s answer is qualified before it is given — some were, but “none were really willing to go out on a limb.”[1] The exceptions he names are a congressman from Florida who came through the Greek American community, and Moran: “Jim was very helpful. Very, very helpful. But that was it besides the two of them.”[2]
The same short list recurs whenever he is asked. In one telling it is “my own congressman at the time, Jim Moran, Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Senator John McCain — they were all great and I appreciated the help very much,” set explicitly against Chuck Grassley, whom Kiriakou calls probably the best friend whistleblowers have on Capitol Hill “and that’s not saying a lot” — Grassley, he says, did nothing for him.[3] In another, Moran “was a great guy too, and he put his reputation on the line for me,” alongside McCain, who tried to legislate Kiriakou’s pension back, and Doggett, whom Kiriakou had never met.[4][5]
On the floor of the House
Moran’s help was public rather than private. He went to the floor of the House of Representatives in November and called on the president to pardon Kiriakou — an act Kiriakou describes as very brave, coming from a congressman who by then had already announced his retirement.[6] Kiriakou hoped at the time to build on it, to accumulate enough congressional support over the following year and a half that a pardon application would be taken seriously.[6]
He repeats the point about generosity in the same terms a decade later: “Congressman Jim Moran, my own congressman from Northern Virginia — Jim could not have been any more generous, making statements on the floor of the House to release John Kiriakou.”[5]
The Bureau of Prisons letters
Moran also intervened with the Bureau of Prisons while Kiriakou was imprisoned at FCI Loretto. Kiriakou added a postscript to one letter from Loretto thanking him, after Moran sent a second letter to Bureau director Charles Samuels the previous week. Moran wrote that he had written the previous September asking that the Justice Department grant Kiriakou at least nine months of halfway-house time; that twelve months was well within Bureau guidelines; that he was disappointed to learn Kiriakou’s return to society might be unnecessarily delayed; and that he was writing again to reiterate the importance of release to a halfway house as soon as possible, so that Kiriakou could be a father to his five children and resume productive contributions to society.[7]
Kiriakou notes the weight behind the request: Moran was a twelve-term congressman and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which controls the Bureau of Prisons budget.[8]
The intervention did not succeed. Kiriakou records that he ultimately received no halfway-house time at all, not a single day.[9]