# The Capitol Hill cocaine ring > **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: "The Capitol Hill cocaine ring," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-capitol-hill-cocaine-ring/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The 1983 congressional drug scandal John Kiriakou stumbled into at eighteen, when an FBI agent called at his father's house and then asked him whether he had ever seen his congressman trade stamps for cocaine, a question he answered no to, and which turned out to be exactly what the congressman was doing.* - **Year:** 1983 - **Kiriakou's age:** 18 - **His job:** Paid intern, district office, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania - **The congressman:** Sentenced to seven and a half years, per Kiriakou - **Others caught:** Four or five members lost primaries or went to prison The **Capitol Hill cocaine ring** was a 1983 federal investigation into drug use among members of the United States Congress, which [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) encountered at eighteen while working as a paid intern in his congressman's district office in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.[1] ## The phone call Kiriakou's father called the office one day and asked whether he was in some kind of trouble. He said no, and asked why. *"And he said, because an FBI agent was here and he wanted to talk to you. And I freaked out. I was a kid. I was 18."*[1] The agent had left a card. Kiriakou called the number and said his father had told him the agent wanted to talk.[1] ## The questions The interview, as Kiriakou recounts it, escalated in three steps. *"Have you ever seen the congressman snort cocaine? And I was like, what? No. Have you ever seen anybody in the office snort cocaine? I said, no. Have you ever seen the congressman trade stamps for cocaine? And I was like, no."*[2] His composure did not survive it: *"I was so freaked out. I blurted out, they all smoke pot on Friday afternoons."*[2] ## What the questions were about The premise of the third question turned out to be correct. *"Well, it turned out that the congressman was trading stamps for cocaine and ended up going to prison for seven and a half years."*[2][3] And he was not alone. In Kiriakou's account, four or five members of Congress *"ended up either losing their primaries or being prosecuted and going to prison because there was this coke ring on Capitol Hill that was in 1983."*[3] ## The lesson he draws The conclusion Kiriakou takes from it is not scandal but ordinariness, the same frame he later applied to [the cocaine in the West Wing](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-cocaine-in-the-west-wing): *"I came to learn after, you know, 41 years here, that's just how Washington runs. It's just a fact of life."*[3] ## See also - [The cocaine in the West Wing](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-cocaine-in-the-west-wing) - [Jim Moran](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jim-moran) ## Sources 1. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 45:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=2721s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/ 2. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 45:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=2753s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/ 3. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 46:23. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=2783s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-capitol-hill-cocaine-ring/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt