# The weight of the government

> **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 weight of the government," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-weight-of-the-government/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's comparison, made on the eve of his imprisonment, between the danger of his overseas career, including two attempts on his life by different terrorist groups, and being prosecuted at home, which he says none of it prepared him for.*

- **Overseas:** Counterterrorism postings; two attempts on his life by different terrorist groups
- **At home:** "The entire weight of the US government coming down on me"
- **His verdict:** Nothing overseas compared

Filmed at home in the days before he began his sentence, [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) was asked to compare the danger of his career with what had happened to him since.

## The remark

"None of the high-pressure situations I ever found myself in overseas working in counterterrorism," he said, "including two attempts on my life by different terrorist groups, could compare with the notion of the entire weight of the US government coming down on me."[1]

## The two attempts

Kiriakou has described both elsewhere. The first was in Athens in 2000, where he was the [Counterterrorism Center](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/counterterrorism-center) representative working against [Revolutionary Organization 17 November](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/revolutionary-organization-17-november); the group's manifesto later disclosed that its members had watched him, judged him too hard a target in an armoured car, and killed the British defence attaché [Stephen Saunders](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/stephen-saunders) instead.[2] The second was in Pakistan.

What makes the comparison work, in his telling, is not that the prosecution was more dangerous but that it was inescapable in a way an assassination threat is not. Against 17 November he had countermeasures, a different departure time each morning, a different route, an armoured car, weapons. Against the Justice Department he had eleven lawyers and a bill approaching a million dollars.

## The framing at the time

The same report set the terms Kiriakou was working against in public: he had gone "from decorated spy to disgraced convict," would serve a thirty-month sentence, and was the first American to go behind bars over waterboarding, "not for having committed it but for having blown the whistle on it."[3]

He answered the charge that he had merely broken a code of silence and then profited from the publicity by pointing at the government's own conduct with classified material, which he calls the larger and more casual leak.

## See also

- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Stephen Saunders](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/stephen-saunders)
- [Revolutionary Organization 17 November](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/revolutionary-organization-17-november)
- [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto)
- [The legal bills](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-legal-bills)

## Sources

1. CIA whistleblower faces jail term (2013-01-24), at 02:40. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdnU_2u_FY4&t=160s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-01-24-channel-4-news-cia-whistleblower-faces-jail-term/
2. Truth Hurts Show (2025-11-04), at 07:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmggvGQJyJw&t=440s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-04-truth-hurts-show-truth-hurts-show/
3. CIA whistleblower faces jail term (2013-01-24), at 02:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdnU_2u_FY4&t=129s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-01-24-channel-4-news-cia-whistleblower-faces-jail-term/

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