# The McConnell obituary

> **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 McConnell obituary," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-mcconnell-obituary/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*A Kentucky newspaper's decision, reported by John Kiriakou in July 2026, to run an obituary of the living Senator Mitch McConnell on purpose — a response, in Kiriakou's reading, to the rapid rehabilitation of Lindsey Graham after his death, and an attempt to get the assessment on the record before the whitewashing could begin.*

- **Published by:** A newspaper in Kentucky, over a weekend in July 2026
- **Subject:** Senator Mitch McConnell, then alive
- **Purpose:** Deliberate — a pre-emptive assessment
- **Trigger:** The rehabilitation of Lindsey Graham after his death

**The McConnell obituary** is an item [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) opened a July 2026 broadcast with: a newspaper in Kentucky had, over the preceding weekend, run an obituary of Senator Mitch McConnell. McConnell was alive. The paper ran it on purpose.[1]

## The reason he gives

Kiriakou attributes the decision to what had happened in the days after the death of Senator [Lindsey Graham](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/lindsey-graham). The immediate response, he says, had been accurate — *"Lindsey Graham was a real war hawk and wanted to get us into different wars"* — and then, over the next few days, it turned: *"Oh, no, wait a minute. He was this great statesman and we love him and everybody should love him and he loved America."*[1][2]

The Kentucky paper's answer to that pattern was to publish its verdict while its subject could still read it.

## His own position

Kiriakou endorses the impulse without qualification: *"let's not whitewash who these people are."* His characterisation of the class of politician in question is that they are the very definition of war criminals, and that they believe they can demand constant war with no fallout at all.[2]

The premature obituary, on that reading, is not a stunt but a countermeasure — an attempt to fix an assessment in print before the obituary industry can soften it.

## See also

- [Lindsey Graham](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/lindsey-graham)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [The Graham Senate Succession](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-graham-senate-succession)

## Sources

1. SHOCKING: New Footage of Lindsey Graham Moments Before Death | Ep. 5 (2026-07-28), at 01:03. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddj51-ba1C0&t=63s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-28-john-kiriakou-shocking-new-footage-of-lindsey-graham-moments/
2. SHOCKING: New Footage of Lindsey Graham Moments Before Death | Ep. 5 (2026-07-28), at 01:34. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddj51-ba1C0&t=94s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-28-john-kiriakou-shocking-new-footage-of-lindsey-graham-moments/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-mcconnell-obituary/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt