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Mort Halperin

Former Assistant Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary of Defense, and senior director of the National Security Council; author of the law John Kiriakou was convicted of violating (the Intelligence Identities Protection Act); wrote to President Obama stating that this is not why he wrote the law and that Kiriakou should be pardoned.

Morton H. Halperin is a former Assistant Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary of Defense, and senior director of the National Security Council. Per John Kiriakou, Halperin authored the statute under which Kiriakou was convicted — the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.[1]

After Kiriakou’s conviction, Halperin wrote to President Obama stating that “this is not why he wrote the law and that I should be” pardoned. The pardon was not granted under the Obama administration.[1]

Kiriakou separately identifies Halperin as having famously appeared on Richard Nixon’s enemies list and as having headed the ACLU in the early 1980s, when he co-wrote the Intelligence Identities Protection Act specifically to protect civil liberties. When Kiriakou was arrested and charged, Halperin called his attorneys and volunteered, unpaid, to testify on his behalf, saying the prosecution was not why the law had been written — that it was, in Kiriakou’s words, “a political case.”[2]

See also

References

  1. Julian Dorey Podcast, 2024-11-071:54:00 on YouTube · Transcript
  2. QuakerHouse, 2015-11-1231:10 on YouTube · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.