Mark McDougall is a U.S. criminal defense attorney and was a member of John Kiriakou’s defense team in the 2012–2013 Espionage Act prosecution under the Plato Cacheras-led firm. Kiriakou identifies him as “one of the best attorneys I’ve ever encountered in my life, and the one that I liked and respected the most.”[1]
The decisive argument
On the morning of the final plea-deal decision — when Cacheras, Bob Trout, and McDougall came to Kiriakou’s house to argue him into accepting — McDougall delivered the line Kiriakou cites as the one that broke through:
You know what your problem is? Your problem is you think this is about justice — and it’s not about justice. It’s about mitigating damage. Take the deal.[1]
Kiriakou took the deal: thirty months, of which he served twenty-three at FCI Loretto.[2]