# The Latin American newspaper prediction > **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 Latin American newspaper prediction," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-latin-american-newspaper-prediction/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The prediction John Kiriakou gave to a Latin American newspaper a week or two after Donald Trump's first inauguration — that things would be better for whistleblowers under Trump because they could not possibly be worse than under Barack Obama — and his later verdict that he had been "very foolish" to say it, since the Trump administration opened three times as many leak investigations and won longer sentences.* - **Made:** One to two weeks after Trump took office, 2017 - **Prediction:** Better for whistleblowers under Trump - **Reasoning:** Could not be worse than under Obama - **Kiriakou's verdict:** "I was very foolish to say it" - **Outcome cited:** Three times as many leak investigations; longer sentences Asked in December 2019 why [Reality Winner](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/reality-winner) had been treated more harshly than earlier national-security defendants, [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) answered that it was because Donald Trump was president — and then volunteered, unprompted, that he had once publicly predicted the opposite. ## The interview A week or two after Trump became president, Kiriakou gave an interview to a Latin American newspaper. The reporter asked whether he thought things would be better or worse for whistleblowers under the new administration. The same question was put to several other people, among them [Thomas Drake](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/thomas-drake) and Chelsea Manning.[1] Kiriakou says he was the only one who said things would be better — "and I was very foolish to say it" — on the reasoning that they "couldn't possibly be any worse than they were under [Obama](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/barack-obama)."[2] He does not name the newspaper. ## What actually happened By his own account the prediction failed on both measures he cared about. "In fact, the Trump administration initiated three times as many leak investigations as the Obama administration did." And the sentences the Justice Department sought and won under Trump were longer than those under Obama — "and that's what reality ran into. It's worse."[3] The comparison is one Kiriakou draws deliberately against himself. In the same conversation he says Winner "got it far, far worse than I did or so many others" — worse than himself, worse than Drake, worse than Bill Binney and Kirk Wiebe.[1] ## The standing of the claim Kiriakou offers the episode as a caution rather than an analysis. He does not argue that the Trump administration was uniquely hostile in kind, only that the baseline he had assumed — that the [Obama](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/barack-obama) record represented a floor beneath which no successor could fall — turned out to be wrong. The [Espionage Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/espionage-act) prosecutions he had treated as an outer limit were not one. He raises the point in the context of prison conditions rather than sentencing alone. Asked whether conditions had changed since his own [23 months](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto), he said they had not: "the Bureau of Prisons is doing nothing to help ease reality's time. This is rough, and it's meant to be rough."[4] He rejects the phrase "club fed" in the same breath — "prison is prison. Whether it has guard towers or not, it's prison."[5] ## See also - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) - [Reality Winner](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/reality-winner) - [Barack Obama](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/barack-obama) - [Espionage Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/espionage-act) - [Thomas Drake](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/thomas-drake) ## Sources 1. New Years Eve Part 1 (English) (2020-01-01), at 24:35. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud2986dcf30&t=1475s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-01-01-potkaars-podcast-new-years-eve-part-1-english/ 2. New Years Eve Part 1 (English) (2020-01-01), at 25:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud2986dcf30&t=1509s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-01-01-potkaars-podcast-new-years-eve-part-1-english/ 3. New Years Eve Part 1 (English) (2020-01-01), at 25:42. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud2986dcf30&t=1542s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-01-01-potkaars-podcast-new-years-eve-part-1-english/ 4. New Years Eve Part 1 (English) (2020-01-01), at 24:04. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud2986dcf30&t=1444s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-01-01-potkaars-podcast-new-years-eve-part-1-english/ 5. New Years Eve Part 1 (English) (2020-01-01), at 23:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud2986dcf30&t=1410s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-01-01-potkaars-podcast-new-years-eve-part-1-english/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-latin-american-newspaper-prediction/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt