# The 9/11 truth honorarium > **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 9/11 truth honorarium," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-nine-eleven-truth-honorarium/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *How John Kiriakou came to headline a 9/11 truth event he had not realised was one: a $500 speaking fee from a PR man he had known through better days, a poster that revealed the sponsor, a sister telling him to withdraw, and his decision to honour the commitment anyway, while telling the audience to their faces that he would never believe Building 7 was a controlled demolition or that explosive thermite paint exists.* - **Fee:** $500 - **Booked by:** A PR man and old friend, named in passing as Trevor - **How he learned the sponsor:** Somebody saw the event poster - **Family advice:** His sister told him to withdraw - **His answer:** "I made a commitment. I have to stand by my commitments" - **Introduced by:** Dennis Kucinich - **What he planned to reject:** Building 7 as controlled demolition; explosive thermite paint - **What he planned to attack:** The Saudis and the Israelis John Kiriakou spent part of a broadcast working through, in public, an engagement he was due to keep that same night and plainly wished he had not accepted. ## How it happened The booking came through a friend. Kiriakou described a PR man who had run into a very bad period, his wife left him, he lost his job, former employees sued him, he was arrested, and said that he had stayed loyal through it: "I'm one of the most loyal people out there."[1] The man had once done public relations for [Julian Assange](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/julian-assange), WikiLeaks and [Edward Snowden](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/edward-snowden), and now works for the far right "because they pay him and the far left walked away."[2] The request was simple: would Kiriakou give a speech on the anniversary of 9/11 about what the day meant to him? "I said, yeah, sure. He said, I'll give you $500. I said, okay, great. That was it. That was the extent of it."[2] Only later did someone see a poster advertising the event under the banner of a 9/11 engineers-and-architects organisation, "featuring, you know, John Kiriakou and all these people who I've always considered to be like deeply insane."[3] His complaint to the friend, "Dog gone it, Trevor, you put me with a 9/11 truth organization", drew the answer "didn't you do your due diligence?" Kiriakou's reply was that he had not: "I trusted you. We're friends. You asked me to do it."[3] ## The decision not to withdraw His sister called and told him he had to pull out. Kiriakou refused: "I can't. I made a commitment. I have to stand by my commitments."[4] He said he had thought about it for a couple of weeks before deciding to go.[4] Dennis Kucinich, he noted, was introducing him.[4] The fee was the whole of the original attraction. "It's an honorarium," he said, "which is the only reason I was doing it. It's $500 I didn't have yesterday", money earmarked, he admitted, for something he had seen on eBay.[5][6] His manager was less impressed, telling him his rate was $10,000 and that he would be strangled for taking $500; [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall) said he was on the manager's side.[5][7] Kiriakou added a further grievance, the talk was at 9:45 at night, well past when he is usually wound down.[7] ## What he intended to say Kiriakou set out his speech in advance, and it was not a concession. He planned to tell the room: "you and I will never ever agree on whether or not Building 7 was controlled demolition. I'll never believe that it was. I will never believe that such a thing as thermite paint exists and is suddenly somehow spontaneously explosive."[4][8] Having said that, he intended to give them the part he does believe: that he can "take a shit on the Saudis for hours without even taking a breath, and on the Israelis, both relative to the 9/11 attacks. And so for sure, that's what I'm going to do."[9] Told the Pakistanis probably deserved some too, he agreed: "That's right."[9] ## The lunch Earlier that day a lunch accompanied the event. Kiriakou found himself beside a man who wanted to explain that the killing of Charlie Kirk had been a shot to the jugular from 200 metres, and to ask who is good at such precision, the Israelis, concluding it was a Mossad operation.[10] Kiriakou cut him off. "I just said, 'Stop. Please just stop. I'm not going to have this conversation. Just stop.'"[11] He had already told Rall he had not realised what he had agreed to when he agreed to it.[12] ## See also - [Julian Assange](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/julian-assange) - [Edward Snowden](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/edward-snowden) - [The Alternative Obituaries](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-alternative-obituaries) - [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall) ## Sources 1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 58:11. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=3491s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 58:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=3524s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 59:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=3559s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 4. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 59:49. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=3589s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 5. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 07:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=439s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 6. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 08:24. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=504s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 7. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 07:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=471s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 8. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 1:00:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=3620s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 9. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 1:00:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=3650s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 10. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 05:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=346s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 11. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 06:17. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=377s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 12. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-11), at 05:15. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cAlUaDXSuI&t=315s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-11-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-nine-eleven-truth-honorarium/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt