The jury consultant’s advice is the single piece of professional counsel John Kiriakou most often repeats about his own prosecution, and he offered it in 2022 as the clearest way of explaining what would happen to Julian Assange if he were extradited.
The court
Kiriakou begins with jurisdiction. Assange “would be tried in the eastern district of virginia that’s the federal court that covers the cia and the pentagon.”[1][2]
The jury pool
The composition of that pool is the whole of the argument. “I’ll i’ll tell you as it relates to julian exactly what my jury consultant told me his jury is going to be made up of people who work for or who have friends and relatives who work for the cia the pentagon the fbi the department of homeland security and intelligence community contractors beltway bandits.”[2]
The point is not that such jurors are dishonest but that the institution on trial is their employer, their neighbour and their livelihood.[2]
The advice
The consultant’s conclusion was framed as a comparison between venues. “my jury consultant told me if we were in any other district in america i would say let’s go for it we’re going to win but the eastern district of virginia he said buddy you don’t have a prayer take the deal.”[2][3]
Kiriakou did take a plea. What he draws attention to is that the same advice could not be given to Assange, for a reason that makes his position worse rather than better: “the problem is and i said this last sunday julian’s not been offered a deal.”[3]
The judges
Kiriakou adds a second structural disadvantage. His own case was heard by “a judge notorious for reserving national security uh cases for herself.” Assange, he says, drew someone worse — a judge who before his appointment to the Eastern District had sat on the FISA court, a body Kiriakou says he researched himself and found had approved 99.81 per cent of requests.[3][4]
What happens once such a trial begins is the subject of sealing the courtroom and the swimming pool substitution.[5]