Ron Wyden is the U.S. senator John Kiriakou calls the only member of the congressional intelligence committees who will challenge the CIA — but “only using the agency’s rules.”[1][2] Kiriakou says he and others begged Wyden to read the Senate torture report into the record under the Constitution’s speech-and-debate clause, as Mike Gravel once did with the Pentagon Papers; Wyden refused. At a dinner after Kiriakou’s release, Wyden admitted, “it took all my energy just to not lose my security clearance” — “you’re afraid of them,” Kiriakou concluded. He notes Wyden famously asked James Clapper whether the intelligence community spied on Americans, yet kept the underlying secret himself.[3][4]
In a separate telling of the same dinner, Kiriakou places it at the Greek ambassador’s residence shortly after his release: Wyden approached him and said, “Hey, welcome home. We were really rooting for you. We were pulling for you.” When Kiriakou pushed back that he had expected more support, especially from Wyden, Wyden again gave the security-clearance answer.[5] Kiriakou names Wyden as one of the few members of Congress he believes truly represents good values, though he wishes Wyden were bolder.[6] He also notes that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, created in 1975, have largely become cheerleading organizations for the CIA, with Wyden as one of the few exceptions on the Senate side.[7]