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 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.[2][3]
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][4][5]
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].”[6][7]
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.’”[8][9][10]
Other recurring complaints
- 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.”[11][12]
- 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.[13][14]