# The seventh Espionage Act defendant

> **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 seventh Espionage Act defendant," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-seventh-espionage-defendant/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The case John Kiriakou cited two days before his own sentencing to correct the count of Espionage Act prosecutions brought under Barack Obama, a translator at the American naval base in Bahrain who had just been charged, making seven, against three in the whole history of the United States before 2009.*

- **Charged before Obama, all of US history:** Three
- **Charged under Obama by January 2013:** Seven
- **Kiriakou's own place in the sequence:** Sixth
- **The seventh:** A translator at the American naval base in Bahrain

Interviewed on 23 January 2013, [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) was described by his host as the sixth whistleblower indicted under the [Espionage Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/espionage-act) by the Obama administration for allegedly mishandling classified information. He agreed, then added a correction.

## The correction

"There's actually been a seventh person charged," he said, "a man who was a translator at the American naval base in Bahrain."[1] Kiriakou did not name him.

## The arithmetic

He then set the number against the historical baseline: "in the entire history of the United States, until Barack Obama was elected president, there were only three people charged with espionage. And just since Obama was elected president there have been seven people charged with espionage."[2]

From that he drew a conclusion about intent rather than coincidence: "the Justice Department can deny it all it wants that they're targeting whistleblowers. I think the evidence is quite clear that they are targeting whistleblowers."[2]

## The count over time

The figure is one Kiriakou has given variously as the prosecutions accumulated and as he has recounted the period from different distances. Speaking to an audience in New Zealand in 2017, he put it at eight Americans charged under the Obama administration for speaking to the press, against three between 1917 and 2009.[3] In a 2016 telling he gave the total as nine since Barack Obama became president.[4] The Bahrain translator is the only one of them he identifies by posting rather than by name.

In each telling the point is the same: that a 1917 statute written, as he puts it, "to target German saboteurs during the First World War" had been repurposed against people who had spoken to reporters, none of them accused of passing information to a foreign government.[4]

## See also

- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Espionage Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/espionage-act)
- [Barack Obama](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/barack-obama)
- [CIA Torture Program Whistleblowing](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-torture-program-whistleblowing)
- [Thomas Drake](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/thomas-drake)

## Sources

1. Former CIA officer John Kiriakou on the Obama administrations war on whistleblowers (2013-01-23), at 13:37. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audaa76167c7&t=817s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-01-23-citizen-radio-former-cia-officer-john-kiriakou-on-the-obama/
2. Former CIA officer John Kiriakou on the Obama administrations war on whistleblowers (2013-01-23), at 14:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audaa76167c7&t=849s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-01-23-citizen-radio-former-cia-officer-john-kiriakou-on-the-obama/
3. Internet Party (2017-08-21), at 24:26. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dljiI06es&t=1466s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-21-internet-party-internet-party/
4. Pt1 Reluctant Spy / Pt2 Michael Bowe (probe: 2-part) (2026-01-15), at 54:10. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlcNzPkfo6M&t=3250s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-15-opperman-report-pt1-reluctant-spy-pt2-michael-bowe-probe-2-pa/

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