John Kerry is a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during John Kiriakou’s 2009 service as the committee’s senior investigator, and subsequently as U.S. Secretary of State during the second Barack Obama administration. Kiriakou’s overall assessment is unfavorable: “I was so excited to work for John Kerry, and he turned out to be a coward. Just a mainstream nobody.”[1]
Recruitment
Kerry called Kiriakou in January 2009 to say he was becoming committee chairman and reconstituting its investigative function, which had been phased out in 1974, and asked if Kiriakou wanted to be lead investigator.[2] Kerry recruited Kiriakou to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2009 on the recommendation of two Vietnam War veterans Kiriakou knew. Kerry’s pitch: “The Senate Foreign Relations Committee used to have an investigative function, but it was zeroed out in 1972, and I’m going to bring it back, and I want to do hard-hitting investigations.” Kiriakou accepted on that basis.[3][4] Kiriakou dates the call to around the time he believed he had been exonerated of the CIA leak case, just as Kerry was about to become committee chairman; Kerry offered him the senior investigator post with a promise of “carte blanche to investigate anyone and anything,” which Kiriakou says “turned out not to even vaguely be true.” Kerry told him he took him on partly because Kerry knew what it was like to “take it on the chin” from the media, and because he believed torture was wrong “under any circumstances.”[5][6][7]
The fixation on Hillary Clinton’s State Department appointment
Kerry was, per Kiriakou, openly bitter that the position of Secretary of State in Obama’s first term was given to Hillary Clinton rather than to himself. “All he ever talked about was how desperately he wanted to be Secretary of State and how he got ripped off and Hillary Clinton stole his job from him.” Kerry related to Kiriakou the conversation with then-candidate Obama in which the post had allegedly been offered to him in exchange for endorsing Obama and delivering the Kennedy-family endorsement — a transaction Kerry believed Obama had reneged on. Kiriakou: “I said, ‘Bill Richardson tells exactly the same story.’ I said, ‘Obama promised half a dozen people in Washington that they would be Secretary of State.’”[1][8][9] Kerry told Kiriakou the offer was made on a walk around the neighborhood after a Christmas dinner at Kerry’s house, Obama’s arm around his shoulder: “John, if you endorse me first, before even the Kennedys, Secretary of State.” Kerry noted he did endorse Obama first, a week before the Kennedys — and, years later, was still bitter that Clinton got the job instead.[10]
Dasht-i-Leili capitulation
Kerry, after initially permitting Kiriakou to write an inquiry letter to the CIA regarding the Dasht-i-Leili massacre reopening promised by Obama in 2008, blocked Kiriakou from taking the agency’s classified non-response (per Kiriakou’s colleague: “go fuck yourself”) to the Washington Post. “And now he doesn’t [want to get to the bottom of Dasht-i-Leili].”[11][12] Kiriakou sent the inquiry letter to the CIA under Kerry’s own signature; six weeks later a classified top-secret response came back reading only “go fuck yourself,” which killed the investigation outright. Kerry backed off, Kiriakou says, because he “wanted desperately to be Secretary of State” and would not risk upsetting the White House.[13][14]
The fake medals
Kerry’s famous 1972 act — throwing his Vietnam War medals over the White House fence in protest of the war — is, per the Foreign Relations Committee staff director (a member of the Kennedy family who told Kiriakou directly), historically inaccurate. The medals Kerry threw were duplicates purchased at the post exchange; the original medals were displayed in a shadow box on a credenza in his Senate office. “He goes, ‘The medals?’ He didn’t throw the medals over the White House fence. He went to the PX and bought copies of the medals and threw the copies over the White House fence. … Those medals are the most important thing in his life.’”[15][16][17] In a separate telling, Kiriakou describes the shadow box itself, seen on his first visit to Kerry’s office in the Russell Senate Office Building: it held two bronze stars, a silver star, and a purple heart, which Kerry told him were replacements bought at the PX that same morning, the real medals kept in the office.[18] Kiriakou separately describes Kerry’s decorations as a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart, adding “I think he had three bronze stars and a purple heart.”[19]
Afghanistan CODEL and Iran outreach
Kiriakou traveled to Afghanistan as chief investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a congressional delegation led by Chairman Kerry roughly ten years into the war.[20] After a military order-of-battle briefing, Kerry remarked, “We may actually win this thing.” Kiriakou pushed back on the spot: Hamid Karzai was “the mayor of Kabul,” the Taliban held the rest of the country, and the briefing was just “happy talk from the generals” designed to protect their budget.[21] Separately, while Kiriakou was on the committee staff, Kerry sought to approach Iran on counternarcotics cooperation as a confidence-building measure — Kiriakou’s idea, prompted by Iran’s worsening heroin problem — but the outreach went nowhere after Iran countered with a request for classified equipment including secure telecommunications gear and night-vision goggles.[22]
Other recurring complaints
- The yacht tax dodge. Kerry, worth an estimated $750 million, initially registered his roughly $6 million yacht in Rhode Island to avoid paying the Massachusetts luxury tax, prompting a Boston Globe story before he relented and paid the tax.[23]
- The Costco wine. Kerry gave staff Christmas gifts of wine he claimed came from his own cellar and was his favorite; Kiriakou and a colleague looked it up and discovered it was a $10 bottle from Costco.[24]
- Bashar al-Assad. Kerry repeatedly referred in public to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as “my dear friend,” citing a personal recollection of riding motorcycles together to the Golan Heights. The Lebanese ambassador in Washington complained to Kiriakou. Kerry’s response: “Well, he is my dear friend.”[25][26] Kiriakou says he personally warned Kerry to stop, noting that Lebanese contacts in Washington were calling him to ask what his boss was doing; Kerry’s explanation was that he and Assad had bonded riding motorcycles together to the Golan Heights.[27]
- Drinking patterns. Kerry’s December 2009 Christmas party — at his $12.5 million Georgetown home — was held in a 20°F side-yard because Kerry would not permit guests inside the house. Joe Biden attended.[28][29]
The Kiriakou investigations Kerry killed
Per John Kiriakou, Kerry hired him in January 2009 as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s chief investigator with an explicit promise to reinstate the committee’s investigative function — “with your reputation as a whistleblower, I want you to come here and head investigations and I want you to go hard.” Every investigation Kiriakou subsequently opened that touched the CIA was personally shut down by Kerry. Kiriakou names two: the Dasht-i-Leili massacre inquiry and the Afghan heroin policy paper. Kiriakou’s reading of the motive: “Because he never ever ever wanted to do anything that could possibly jeopardize his chances of becoming Secretary of State. That’s all he cared about. It’s what he lived for.”[30][31][32]
The shadow box, the buried cases, and the cold shoulder
John Kiriakou was hired in January 2009 as senior investigator when John Kerry reconstituted the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigations office. In Kerry’s office he noticed a shadow box holding Kerry’s medals — the ones Kerry is famous for throwing over the White House fence in protest. The staff director told him Kerry had gone to the PX that morning and bought copies to throw; the real medals were on the wall.[33][34][35] Kiriakou says Kerry repeatedly ordered him to kill investigations — into Afghan heroin and the Dasht-i-Leili massacre — because he “so desperately wanted to be Secretary of State” and would do nothing to embarrass Barack Obama. After Kiriakou’s arrest, his emailed plea for help drew a two-line reply: “Please do not ever attempt to contact me again.”[36][37][38] Four days before reporting to federal prison, Kiriakou emailed Kerry’s private address directly — “Mr. Secretary, I’m begging you, you know me, you know I didn’t do this, please ask the president to commute my sentence” — hoping a commutation would let him provide for his five children while the conviction itself stood, sparing the Justice Department the embarrassment of a reversal. Kerry’s one-sentence reply arrived two days later: “please do not ever attempt to contact me again.”[39]
Restoring an Israeli spy’s visa
John Kiriakou says Benjamin Netanyahu went to Secretary of State John Kerry three times to reinstate the U.S. visa of Arnon Milchan — a documented Israeli spy — which was eventually restored, becoming the basis of a Netanyahu corruption charge.[40]
‘You’re going to kill that investigation’ (Secret Intelligence Report)
John Kiriakou says John Kerry hired him in 2009 to “root out wrongdoing” as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s investigator — then blocked every investigation to avoid embarrassing Obama, whom Kerry desperately hoped would make him Secretary of State. Kerry killed the Dasht-i-Leili inquiry and even a finding that American passports contain smart chips made in China and are assembled in Thailand. “Are you going to let me do anything?” Kiriakou asked, before resigning after two years.[41][42][43]