# John Walker Lindh

> **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: "John Walker Lindh," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-walker-lindh/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*American citizen captured while fighting alongside the Taliban in late 2001, present at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress at the start of the prisoner uprising that killed CIA officer Mike Spann. In John Kiriakou's account his case matters less for what Lindh did than for what was done around him — the false claim that he had been read his rights, the destruction of the career of the Justice Department lawyer who said so, and his place on the docket of the one judge who reserves national-security cases for herself.*

- **Nationality:** United States
- **Affiliation:** Taliban
- **Captured:** Late November 2001, Qala-i-Jangi fortress, northern Afghanistan
- **Rights claim:** Attorney General stated he was read his rights and waived them — per Kiriakou, false
- **Trial judge:** [Leonie Brinkema](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/leonie-brinkema), [Eastern District of Virginia](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/eastern-district-of-virginia)

**John Walker Lindh** is the American citizen captured while fighting alongside the Taliban during the early phase of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. He was present at the [Qala-i-Jangi fortress](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/qala-i-jangi-uprising) in northern Afghanistan at the start of the late-November 2001 prisoner uprising in which CIA officer [Mike Spann](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mike-spann) was killed.[1][2]

[John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) fixes the two events together in sequence — *"we had just caught John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban,"* and then the uprising broke out among the Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners already taken, in which Spann and a handful of others were overwhelmed, fired until they ran out of bullets, and Spann was stomped to death. Kiriakou dates the uprising to 30 November 2001, correcting himself in the telling.[3][4]

## Jesselyn Radack and the false rights claim

Kiriakou recounts, drawing on whistleblower attorney [Jesselyn Radack](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jesselyn-radack)'s own account, that when Lindh was captured at the Qala-i-Jangi uprising, Radack — then a Justice Department ethics attorney on duty that day — was called from the Pentagon and told him, as clearly as she could, that Lindh had to be read his rights. He was not.[5][6] Radack objected to the Justice Department's own director of ethics that proceeding without doing so was unconstitutional and unethical; days later, Attorney General John Ashcroft nonetheless gave a press conference stating that Lindh had been read his rights, had waived his right to an attorney, and had confessed. Per Kiriakou, *"that was a lie."*[7][8] In a related claim from a different telling, Ashcroft separately stated that Lindh was entitled to choose his own lawyer.[9]

## What it cost Radack

Kiriakou follows the case past Lindh to what happened to the lawyer. Radack went through the chain of command to lodge a complaint and was told to keep her mouth shut; she went to the press instead and was fired from the Justice Department. The department then filed a complaint against her with the District of Columbia Bar Association, attempting to bar her from ever practising as an attorney again, and put her on the no-fly list as a terrorist sympathiser.[8][10]

Kiriakou is careful about what her objection was and was not: *"she wasn't taking a position on John Walker Lindh['s] politics, she was just treating him like any other American in trouble."*[10]

## The Brinkema docket

Lindh's case belongs to a pattern Kiriakou describes from the inside of his own prosecution. The [Eastern District of Virginia](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/eastern-district-of-virginia) is known as the espionage court, because no national-security defendant has ever won a case there; and within it, Kiriakou says, one judge — [Leonie Brinkema](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/leonie-brinkema) — reserves all national-security cases for herself. The list he gives is himself, [Jeffrey Sterling](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jeffrey-sterling), [Julian Assange](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/julian-assange), [Edward Snowden](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/edward-snowden), Zacarias Moussaoui and John Walker Lindh.[11][12]

## See also

- [Qala-i-Jangi uprising](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/qala-i-jangi-uprising)
- [Mike Spann](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mike-spann)
- [Jesselyn Radack](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jesselyn-radack)
- [Leonie Brinkema](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/leonie-brinkema)
- [Eastern District of Virginia](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/eastern-district-of-virginia)

## Sources

1. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 3:37:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=13029s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
2. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 3:37:39. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=13059s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
3. Reveals Terrifying CIA Technology (2026-05-25), at 29:27. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csLkVGSYwYU&t=1767s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-25-john-kiriakou-podcast-reveals-terrifying-cia-technology/
4. Reveals Terrifying CIA Technology (2026-05-25), at 29:57. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csLkVGSYwYU&t=1797s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-25-john-kiriakou-podcast-reveals-terrifying-cia-technology/
5. John Kiriakou Speaks at Quaker House (2015-11-12), at 1:01:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2GbWGoIW6w&t=3681s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-11-12-quakerhouse/
6. Tackling Torture at the Top John Kiriakou and Bradley Ol (2015-11-14), at 56:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFTwPrTyY2Q&t=3372s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-11-14-robin-hensel/
7. John Kiriakou Speaks at Quaker House (2015-11-12), at 1:02:23. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2GbWGoIW6w&t=3743s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-11-12-quakerhouse/
8. The Legal Power Hour - with Second-Time Guest: John Kiriakou (2018-06-05), at 14:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-YSYuGX7IE&t=861s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2018-06-05-stack-the-legal-odds-in-yo-the-legal-power-hour-with-second-time-guest-j/
9. SILENCED (2014) - The War on Whistleblowers (Feature Documentary) w/ John Kiriakou Tom Drake (2025-10-14), at 35:57. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7UXdr1l1lY&t=2157s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-14-jspione-silenced-2014-the-war-on-whistleblowers-feature-documentary-/
10. The Legal Power Hour - with Second-Time Guest: John Kiriakou (2018-06-05), at 14:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-YSYuGX7IE&t=893s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2018-06-05-stack-the-legal-odds-in-yo-the-legal-power-hour-with-second-time-guest-j/
11. Freedom Hub Working Group (2020-04-20), at 21:33. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8QQGwrN5Ag&t=1293s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-04-20-freedom-hub-working-group-freedom-hub-working-group/
12. Freedom Hub Working Group (2020-04-20), at 22:06. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8QQGwrN5Ag&t=1326s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-04-20-freedom-hub-working-group-freedom-hub-working-group/

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