John McCain was a long-serving U.S. Senator from Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, and — in John Kiriakou’s account — the most prominent legislative advocate of his post-prison rehabilitation.[1]
Senate-floor defense of Kiriakou
In December 2014, six weeks before Kiriakou’s release from FCI Loretto, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary of its report on CIA detention and interrogation — the document subsequently known as the Senate Torture Report. McCain, on the floor of the Senate, made what Kiriakou identifies as the single most consequential public defense of his whistleblowing:
If it weren’t for John Kiriakou, the American people would never have had any idea what the CIA was doing in their name.[1]
The post-prison welcome and the pension amendment
On Kiriakou’s release, one of his first received calls was from McCain’s chief of staff, who relayed McCain’s “welcome home” and asked what could be done to be helpful. The CIA had, following Kiriakou’s felony conviction, stripped him of his federal pension — “They drove me into bankruptcy and took my pension.”[2][3]
McCain’s proposed remedy was a tightly drafted amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2016, designed exclusively to apply to Kiriakou:
Every American convicted of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act between October 1st and October 31st, 2012 shall hereby have his pension reinstated.[4]
(Kiriakou is the only American falling within that window.)
McCain intended to insert the amendment into the NDAA via his seat on the conference committee. He was then diagnosed with the brain tumor that ultimately killed him, was removed from the committee, and the amendment was withdrawn. Kiriakou’s pension has not been restored.[5]
Working relationship through the Kerry years
McCain and Kiriakou had developed a personal connection during Kiriakou’s 2009–2011 service as senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under John Kerry. Per Kiriakou, McCain would “go out of his way to shake my hand and say hi” — to the visible jealousy of Kerry, who once needled them: “Why don’t you two get a room or something?” Kiriakou’s reply, in his recollection: “We have this connection over torture. McCain takes me seriously and I take him seriously.”[2][3]