This conversation with John Kiriakou, a former CIA Intelligence Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, delves into the intricate and troubling realities of the American prison system. Kiriakou shares his profound insights garnered from his own experiences within this system, particularly highlighting the pervasive issues of neglect and lack of education for inmates. He articulates the pressing need for reform, emphasizing that the current paradigm prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation, thereby perpetuating a cycle of recidivism. As we engage in this dialogue, we explore not only Kiriakou's personal journey but also the broader implications of these systemic failures on society. This episode serves as a critical examination of the justice system, urging legal professionals to reflect on their roles within this complex landscape.

The conversation culminates in an impassioned call to action, as Kiriakou implores listeners—particularly those within the legal profession—to engage in discussions about prison reform. He highlights the detrimental impact of a system that is more concerned with maintaining control than fostering personal development among inmates. Kiriakou’s narrative is interspersed with poignant anecdotes that illustrate the dire consequences of neglecting the humanity of those incarcerated. He emphasizes the importance of legal advocacy in enacting change, suggesting that lawyers have a unique responsibility to address the injustices that permeate the prison system. Ultimately, the dialogue serves not only as a critique of the status quo but also as a beacon of hope, as it encourages collective efforts toward establishing a more equitable and rehabilitative justice system that recognizes the potential for growth and change within every individual.

Takeaways:

• John Kiriakou's insights into the prison system reveal significant flaws in rehabilitation and education for inmates, which contributes to high recidivism rates.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zAmQT7Daw
• The conversation highlights the pervasive culture of punishment within U.S. prisons, contrasting it with more rehabilitative approaches seen in other countries.
• Kiriakou's personal experiences in prison illustrate the mental and emotional toll faced by inmates, particularly those who feel abandoned by society.
• The episode emphasizes the need for legal reform, particularly in how the justice system handles whistleblowers and the treatment of individuals within the prison system.
• The discussion sheds light on the impact of the Bureau of Prisons' corruption on both inmates and guards, suggesting that systemic change is crucial for improvement.
• Throughout the episode, Kiriakou's story serves as a catalyst for broader conversations about transparency, accountability, and the importance of advocacy in the legal profession.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Central Intelligence Agency
• Deloitte
• Washington Post
• Bureau of Prisons
• Geo Corporation
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Department of Commerce
• Conair

Links referenced in this episode:

• John Kiriakou
• Legal Owl Podcast

Welcome to legal oil.

My guest today is John kiriakou, intelligence officer, former intelligence officer with the central intelligence agency and today he's coming on to legal oil.

We're going to talk about the prison system and where he sees the problems that exist from the bureau of prisons down to the prisoners and also those in the prison system.

What are the weaknesses and why are the prisons not educating prisoners?

What did he experience when he went to prison?

What was his mental and emotional mindset before he did his time?

Enjoy this conversation on legal oil because this is probably the start of a wider and a greater look at the prison system in the legal industry.

And if you are a lawyer, if you're a criminal lawyer, then we want to hear from you.

What problems do you see in the justice system and the prison system?

My guest today is John kiriakou.

Enjoy.

Very, very little.

Very little.

Honestly, it's every man for himself.

I remember one of the guards overhearing one of the guards telling another prisoner, screaming at another prisoner, nobody gives a shit about you.

Nobody gives a shit if you live or die.

You've entered legal l where sharp legal minds meet.

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Lawyers, legal support professionals and expert witnesses sharing real stories from the front lines.

This is the space where law meets what's rarely talked about.

Welcome to legal how where wisdom meets the law and strategic intuitive intelligence guides the way.

John Kiriakou, welcome to legal Owl, my friend, how are you?

I'm doing well.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm absolutely.

It's a pleasure to have you on John, and I'm really excited about this conversation.

And as.

As you know, we're going to talk about something different.

Anybody who's out there, you've listened to my introduction, but John, just give everybody a little bit of background on who you are and then we're going to jump right into john the man and not john the spy.

Sure, yeah.

I went from there into the private sector to Deloitte heading their competitive intelligence program.

Then I went to the.

Went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the senior investigator.

And then the Obama administration fell on my head, prosecuted me for.

For blowing the whistle on the torture program.

And I was facing 45 years in prison.

I ended up taking a plea to a lesser charge to make the thing go away.

I was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

I did 23 months, which was a lot better than 45 years, and then went home to my five kids.

But I'll tell you, and I'm going to preempt a question that I know you're going to ask, I would absolutely, positively do it all over again.

It was worth it.

The only thing I might do differently is to hire an attorney before blowing the whistle, which I recommend other, you know, would be whistleblowers do.

But otherwise, no apologies and no second thoughts.

Joy, I can't believe you said that.

We'll need to get you back on Help Legal Ill.

So you can actually, we can do another episode on the whistleblower things.

I'm sure there's tons of lawyers out there.

Want to, want to kind of jump on that, if I may.

I want to kind of talk a little bit about your, your thought process as you were coming up to this inevitable time.

How were you, what was going through your mind?

How were you coping with the, the, you know, how your life is just going to change and that you're.

You're going to go to prison, Your.

First thought is to commit suicide.

Right.

You know, when, when you're 48 years old and you're facing 45 years in prison, it's.

It's a death sentence anyway.

Once you get past that and you're fortunate enough, as I was fortunate enough to hire the best lawyers in Washington, whom the Washington Post called legal titans, giants, half of whom did it for free.

Then you realize that you can put up a fight.

And, you know, I had something.

I had something that the government really hadn't planned on.

As simple as it might sound.

I had the truth on my side.

And they wanted to frighten me to the point where I didn't dare get on the stand to tell the truth.

And I was absolutely willing to get on the stand and tell the truth.

And so rather than risk me going up on the stand and saying something that they didn't want the American people to know or to hear, they offered me this deal.

They were furious about it.

And you know what, John?

When I was getting ready to leave, my lead attorney pulled me aside, and he said, listen, the CIA is furious that you got such a short sentence, and they're going to try to set you up once you get there.

And I was there about six weeks, and sure enough, that's exactly what they did.

They tried to set me up.

I didn't take the bait.

And eventually they stopped.

They tried to set you up when you went in?

Yeah.

I had been in six weeks, and there was an Afghan American pharmacist who had an unfortunate oxycontin problem who lived on my housing unit.

And he came up to me, really good guy.

He came up to me one day and he said, hey, John, the spokesman for the Taliban just got transferred here, and he wants to meet you.

I said, the spokesman for the Taliban?

I said, are you talking about that case in New Jersey?

He said, yeah.

I said, no, I don't want to meet that guy.

I don't have anything to say to that guy.

He said, oh, okay.

Couple of days pass, I'm out in the yard exercising, walking around the track, and this guy with a beard down to his waist is walking right toward me with his hand out, like to shake my hand.

I put my hands up.

I said, don't you dare touch me.

And he said, come on, man.

He's got his hand out.

Come on, man.

I just want to say hi.

I said, don't touch me.

And I happened to look past him, and there was a guard in the woods outside the fence with a camera with a telephoto lens going, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

I said, so help me God, I'll punch you in the throat if you try to touch me.

And he said, we have a lot in common.

I said, we don't have anything in common other than I tried to kill people like you, so get lost.

And he walked away.

And then they transferred him out.

He was in my prison for five days.

So he was definitely there for a setup.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

You know what you actually did.

And as everybody knows, the whistleblower.

I mean, there's a lot of people call you whatever they want to call you, but I find it interesting as well that even back in the UK and other circles and other intelligence circles, the jungle drums were beaten, and they had the same feeling.

It seemed like to me from investigations that they all had the same feeling.

So was everybody waiting for you to be an example that would ripple through the whole IC community in the world?

That is exactly what it was, one of the attorneys said to me, this case is so much bigger than John kiriakou.

It's not about you.

It's about frightening anybody else in the entire.

In the intelligence community who might be thinking of going public with evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, illegality or threats to the public health or public safety.

It's way bigger than you.

And I came to believe that that was true.

Yeah.

Because everybody was watching all over the world waiting on this.

Including ed snowden.

Yes.

Ed snowden told the new york times that tom Drake from nsa and I inspired him to do what he did.

Wow.

Do you think there's.

I mean, I'm probably jumping ahead again, but you think there's a lot more to come?

I do, I do.

I do.

Because the government is so corrupt.

The signs are there.

Oh, yeah, the signs are there.

Whether it's on Iran or the American relationship with Israel or again, torture, section 702, rendition, assassination, secret prisons, whatever it is, spying on american citizens, whatever, people are going to come out.

What was it like for you, you know, as you were getting into that in the first week?

Because the way that I see it is you essentially have, in my mind, you've been two prisons.

You got the prison, there's material, and then you've got the prison of the mind because obviously you went through a really bad time with divorce and the family and everything else.

How did you cope with the fallout mentally from you going in there in the first week and then your family dealing with everything that they had to deal with?

Because you were all over the news.

This was big news.

The world was watching.

The intelligence community in every country going was watching.

What about your family?

Because everybody seems to forget your family.

Yeah, my marriage didn't survive it, which was a shock.

I, I, I actually.

I'm prohibited by court order from giving the details.

Not that I have anything to hide.

No, no.

Which I don't.

But I, I can't go into the details.

But needless to say, my marriage didn't survive.

It's a situation like this, John, where, Where you really get to see who's with you and who's not.

And sometimes the ones who are not are the ones that are the most shocking.

You never expected it.

No.

I think I've heard you saying that before and I think you mentioned that in your book as well.

Doing time like a spy, which is anybody's list, is an awesome book to go and listen to.

Oh, thank you.

My wife absolutely loves it.

Thank you.

Much to my shock, it's in its third printing.

I know, honestly, it's a really good book.

I listened to that and I listened to your.

We went straight from your first one to your next one.

My wife was absolutely enthralled with it, you know, thank you very much.

I said, she's a frustrated intelligence agent.

Now, obviously you're.

When you went into prison, you mentioned in your book that you.

I kind of want to get into the humanity things because it seems to me, listening to you in the book and going through it, a lot of people will say people in prison, they deserve to be imprisoned.

But there seems to be like striking elements where there's very little humanity there.

Very, very little.

Very little.

Honestly, it's every man for himself.

I remember one of the guards overhearing, one of the guards telling another prisoner, screaming at another prisoner, nobody gives a shit about you.

Nobody gives a shit if you live or die.

And that's true.

That's daily life.

Prison in the United States is about punishment.

Not about reform or education or preventing recidivism or teaching life skills.

It's about punishment.

We have draconian laws with draconian sentences.

I know you know this statistic as well as anybody, but we have 5% of the world's population in the United States, but we have 25% of the world's prison population.

I know, it's crazy.

You did make that.

It's unacceptable.

I've heard you mention that before.

It is, but.

And I think the problem is, as you mentioned as well, as you just mentioned there, you don't have any education, you don't have any rehabilitation.

Not that I've ever been in prison, but I do know that back in the UK and I'm not in the uk, I live in North Carolina now.

But back in the UK and other countries, they do have reform, they do have education, they do have resettlement.

They do try to help them to transform and change.

I think in Germany and Sweden and different places.

Why do you think America is the way it is?

Why is it so draconian, as you mentioned?

Because this is what the American people demand.

The American people, every American politician, everybody wants to appear to be tough on crime, but that is so short sighted and so stupid.

Because it encourages recidivism.

We have a 50% recidivism rate.

If you're a drug dealer and you get arrested and sentenced to five years in prison, seven, eight years, whatever, in prison and you go to prison and you can't learn plumbing or electrical work or small motor repair or even landscaping, you you can't learn anything because you're locked up.

Well, you get out at the end of your sentence and what's the only thing you know how to do?

Sell drugs.

And so that's what you're gonna go do again.

Do you know that makes sense.

You're just.

It brings me back to a memory of my father.

My father wasn't the cleanest guy in the world, but there's a prison in Scotland, in Glasgow, called Berliny.

And I remember back in the days, my dad came back home, I was a young kid, and he came back home and he had beautiful golf shoes, and they were made by prisoners in the Berlin prison, or there was.

And so.

And I've never seen anything like that.

I mean, you see the chain gangs and things here, but there seems to me from what you're saying, there's nothing like that.

And there's maybe an opportunity there where it could add to society rather than taken away.

Look at the Scandinavian countries.

I'm talking about Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, specifically, most of their prisons.

Most of them, not all, but most aren't even actual prisons by the US Term.

They are apartments where you've got bedrooms and a kitchen.

And then you have to take classes on life skills.

You have classes on.

On vocational.

Vocational technologies.

Vocational rehabilitation.

You can learn how to fix motors and how to.

A plumber and how to be an electrician and.

And how to do medical coding.

Or, I mean, you can pick a half a dozen different careers and be trained.

If you already have a career, you can continue on in your studies, and then when you get out, you're automatically a productive member of society, and we have no such thing in the United States.

And worse than that is there's no national will to even bother to develop something like that.

It's all about the punishment.

Joe.

I find it really shocking because being an immigrant, coming here and meeting the American people, I think.

And I keep politics out of it, but.

And I think that's what we should keep politics out of these things, obviously, because I think we'd have a bit more understanding.

But I find in the uk, you know, it can be quite tough.

It can be quite hard.

People in general can not have the same kindness, if you like, in certain places.

Where I find, coming here and I came to America and I thought my.

Everybody is.

They're really kind.

They're really.

And so for you to say that they just want to punish people, it makes me sad because I look at American society and I see young kids now and, you know, back Home, you know, you wouldn't have young kids saying, oh yes sir, no sir, mom, you know, and being respectful, you know, back home in Glasgow.

And as you probably know, they can be quite rough and they have no respect.

And so I find it quite sad that that's what is the perception now in American society, because I never saw that.

I love America and I love the people and I find them very supportive and very.

Where they're not so much in the uk.

And to say that kind of, it does make me feel a bit kind of sad.

That's what happens.

And couple that with this.

Over the last 20 years, Congress has created 50 new crimes on average every year.

Not 50 new laws, 50 new crimes every year.

Things that a year ago were legal, that today are felonies.

Again, it's draconian.

And so I'll give you an example, this is one of my favorite examples because it's outrageous and it's common.

So there was a woman in Honolulu, Hawaii.

She was a mid level GS12 employee of the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is a part of the Department of Commerce.

Yeah.

And because she's a GS12, she's not making any money.

Honolulu is very expensive.

And so she and a friend go into business together, they buy a boat and on the weekends they take tourists out to the boat, on the boat to go whale watching.

So one day they're out there and they come across a pod of orcas feeding on a seal carcass.

And so everybody runs to the side of the boat and they're taking pictures and videos and somebody whistles at the whale to sort of keep it, I guess on the surface, you know, better picture.

Whatever, whatever reason.

Not like the whale's going to do anything about it, but whistled at the whale.

Okay.

Few days later, there's a knock on the door.

FBI.

She answers the door.

Do you, you have this boat?

Yes.

You take tourists out on the boat?

Yes.

Did you go last weekend?

Yes.

Did you see a pot of orcas?

Yes.

Did you whistle at the whale?

She said no, somebody did, but I didn't.

But you know what she said?

I videotape all of these outings and I sell the DVDs to the tourists.

If you want, I can give you a copy of the dvd.

They come back with a search warrant, they take all the DVDs, they take her phone, they take her computer, they seize the boat, they take everything and they charge her with a felony count of interfering with the feeding of a wild animal, which is a felony under the Endangered Species Act.

She fought that case for six years.

She fought the case for six years.

She didn't whistle at the whale.

She ended up taking a guilty plea to a reduced charge just because it bankrupted her.

And she ended up getting probation.

She lost her boat, she lost her job.

She lost her pension.

She lost her friend.

She lost every cent she ever earned.

And you have to ask yourself, is the country better off because she was prosecuted?

Are we safer?

Are we stronger?

I'm sure she was prosecuted, but this is America today.

This is what we do.

I mean, I've heard so many different silly laws and legal law, because I deal with lawyers all the time.

And when some of the cases they talk about that we have a chat about, I'm like, what, are you kidding?

Well, may I add one, and this is one that I was just told of recently.

So I used to be an adjunct professor at Liberty University.

Don't judge me.

Lovely people.

Even if we disagree, they're lovely people, so judge anybody.

So one of them, one of the professors, lives in a townhouse development, right?

And one of his neighbors was burglarized.

So the police began going door to door.

Did you hear anything?

Did you see anything?

My friend, you know, PhD, political scientist, law abiding citizen, he wants to help the cops.

They, they knock on the door.

He invites them into the house, which you don't ever, ever, ever do.

Don't ever invite a cop into your house.

Don't speak to cops, period.

It's a mistake.

So he invites the cop into the house.

Did you see anything?

No, I didn't.

Did you hear anything?

No.

You know, you know, there was a car in the driveway a couple of days ago, but I don't really know anything.

I.

But I hope you guys catch them.

Whatever I can do.

Let me know.

As the cop is walking out, he sees one of those pill containers, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, where you put your pills in.

And he says, ah, you got a pill container?

I do too.

He goes, high blood pressure.

How about you?

He said, oh, that's, that's my wife's.

Yeah, high blood pressure, diabetes.

But she was in a car accident and, and so she's, she's got to take these painkillers, you know, at a certain time.

Yeah.

The cop says, may I see that?

Sure.

He's got nothing to hide.

He's a law abiding citizen.

He's there to help.

He shows the cop the pill container.

He opens it up.

There are Percocets.

One in the morning, one in the evening.

May I see your wife.

Sure.

The wife comes out, you're under arrest.

Why?

Why?

Because it is illegal to have controlled substances outside of their issuing containers.

It's a felony.

So it was legal for her to have the Percocets in the little bottle that says Percocet prescribed to her.

As soon as she took it out and put it in that pill container?

That became a felony.

That is absolutely crazy.

And if.

Well, guys, if you're listening to this on the podcast, then you just can't see my face.

Seriously, I'm crazy.

And they're in their 60s.

These aren't young kids we're talking about.

They're in their 60s.

But I said to him, they fought this for a year.

I talked to him a couple of nights ago.

They fought it for a year.

It was knocked down to a misdemeanor, they had to pay a fine and she had one year of probation.

No big deal.

But it's on her record for the rest of her life that she is convicted of a drug offense.

This 65 year old woman convicted of a drug offense.

Now I said to him, I said, listen, I don't mean to be cynical, but this has become the truth for me.

The cops don't get promoted by not arresting you.

The prosecutors don't get promoted by not prosecuting you.

Right.

So everybody is a target.

Everybody don't talk to cops.

So it's a business.

Sure it is.

I mean, half of our prisons are private prisons.

Just look up the Geo Corporation.

The way they make their money is to make sure every one of those beds is full and that they're feeding you animal grade food instead of human grade food.

And they're not giving you your medication.

You mentioned that in your letters from Loretto, which, excuse me, but you mentioned that, John, you mentioned that when that building initially, I think in Loretto, it had housed.

I can't remember what it was, maybe it was a hospital, but there was space.

But then when there was one, you had eight people to a room where it would only be one or two.

Yeah, yeah.

The rooms for two had four, the rooms for four had eight.

If you were lucky, you were in a room for four that had six.

And.

Sorry, allergy season is really killing me.

Listen, it's killing me up here as well.

I never had allergies until I came to the United States.

Seriously, give me one second.

Go for it.

Yeah.

So this is something, like I said, I hate to be cynical, but this is something that you have to worry about.

Of course you've done Nothing.

Of course you're innocent.

Of course you're a patriotic American and you want to be helpful to the, to the authorities, especially where a crime is being committed.

But that doesn't mean that they are your friends.

No.

And that doesn't mean that they're not going to target you.

No.

I think I've seen enough since being here where I have admittedly been shocked at why someone would be arrested for this or why it would be as bad as it is.

And I think listening to you talk, which is why I wanted to bring you on and talk about this, is listen to you talk in your book about it, I find it absolutely fascinating.

Well, it's fascinating sad as well, how we treat.

Even though.

Yeah.

People.

The bad guys go to prison.

Absolutely.

And they deserve to be punished.

But I think there's people like in yourself, in your case and other cases that don't need to get treated the way they get treated.

And then where is the problem?

Is it at a government level?

Is it a legal level?

Is there laws that need to be changed?

And here's the other thing.

I mean, I.

Because help lawyer.

We work in all different states.

Every state has got a different law.

Yeah, every state has a different law.

That's right.

That to me is.

I just want to figure out.

I'll give you another example too, because I have a federal felony conviction.

I lost my gun rights for life.

Well, the governor of Virginia, when I got out of prison, Governor Terry McAuliffe, God bless this man.

I had not even applied for a state pardon because I hadn't committed a state crime.

But he followed my case.

He thought I had been wronged and he issued me a pardon.

It was symbolic, but it technically reinstated my state gun rights.

But I still don't have my federal gun rights.

So if I go out to the Dulles Expo center on Saturday to the gun show, which is there every weekend.

Yeah.

And I buy a gun, I'm perfectly within my rights according to the state of Virginia.

But at the federal level, a felon with a gun is a mandatory minimum 5 year sentence.

I could get 8 years just for being in possession of a gun.

Do you think you're still watched now waiting for you to trip up so that they.

So that I probably didn't want to.

I do want to ask this.

Do you think you're still getting watched now and waiting for you to do anything, to slip up, anything, or have you got to such a point now where they're worried about maybe the influence that you have and also the Intelligence that you have, because you clearly won a lot of case, you know, won a lot of stuff from the prison with letters from Loretto.

I did, you know, I'm very proud to say that a few weeks ago, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons called me and asked me if I would serve on an informal advisory council to advise him on how to reform the Bureau of Prisons.

Wow.

I said, absolutely, yes.

I said, but I don't think you're going to succeed.

I said, your problem is corruption.

You guys are corrupt from the very top to the very bottom and everybody in between.

And the first thing you're going to have to do.

And I'm saying this as a lifelong union member and pro union activist, the first thing you're going to have to do is to break that union because all it does is support corruption, and you'll never get it done, let alone done in the next two and a half years.

What'd he say?

He said, you're probably right, but let's meet and talk about it.

He started off the conversation by saying, you've been talking shit about the Bureau of Prisons for the last 10 years.

I said, correction, I've been talking shit about the Bureau of Prisons for the last 13 years.

I was going to say, and rightly so.

I said.

And I said, because the whole system is corrupt and broken.

Do you know what?

There's times we were driving down the road and something would happen and the Bureau of Prisons would screw you over and you didn't get your.

You didn't get out.

And my wife would go, I can't believe they did that.

She never swears or anything.

You know, oh, my God, that's horrible.

You know, going nuts.

They're horrible.

They really are.

Believe it.

And this is the problem.

And I think, you know, where does this start?

And here's the thing that I want to do is, I mean, just what we can do, even we help lawyer with different.

Hundreds of lawyers that are maybe listening to this, listening to this podcast in our network.

Maybe something's going to tweak that they can start to look at this change.

But you're saying there's probably not going to be change?

No, I don't think there will be change.

What would you like to see?

What would be an ideal situation for you, John, for the transformation of the prison reform?

What would you think would.

What's the minimal thing that you're saying would change the direction of it,.

Of the Bureau of Prisons?

If.

If you could handle corruption, if you could address corruption?

It would change everything.

But there are so many different moving parts involved in addressing corruption.

First of all, the only qualifications to be a prison guard in the United States Correctional officer, a prison guard is you have to be at least working on a ged.

You don't even need a high school education, Just working on a GED and no felony convictions.

That's it.

There's a rule in the Bureau of Prisons that prisoners may not hand out the mail, but the prisoners always hand out the mail.

Do you know why?

No, why?

Because the guards can't read.

The guards can't read read.

And so they can't hand out the mail, so the prisoners do it.

It's that bad?

It's not bad.

There was something that happened when I was at Loretto fci.

Loretto, where there's a minimum security camp across the street.

And you're sort of on your honor not to run away, and you have to follow the rules.

Well, some of these prisoners against the rules.

Got some money, you're not allowed to have cash.

And they ordered a pizza.

And when the pizza man came to drop off the pizza, he knows that there were other prisoners who were in the woods walking away from the prison.

So he went across the street to the actual prison and said, listen, I'm the pizza delivery guy.

And not only did your prisoners order pizzas, but there were a couple of other prisoners who were walking away.

They're walking down the highway, and the guards ran down there and caught them.

They almost instantly hired the pizza delivery man to be a guard.

His only qualification was that he had two eyes and they both worked and he could read, apparently.

And so he's the new prison guard.

So do you think that there should be change to how prison guards are hired and trained?

Oh, yeah, I do.

I think there should be.

There should be huge changes.

For example, they're.

They're grotesquely underpaid.

I. I was being taken out to.

To a.

An orthopedist.

I had broken my pinky finger, so.

Oh, yeah, I remember you saying that in the book.

Yeah, Actually, it was this pinky finger.

Yeah, I broken my pinky finger.

So they.

They chained me, shackled me, my ankles around my waist, my wrists, everything.

I'm shackled.

I can take a little baby step at a time.

And.

And they put me in the van.

And one of them.

There were two.

Two in the.

In the front, a driver and passenger.

And one of them said, I got passed over for promotion again.

And the other one said, you still haven't gotten that four.

And, like, it's any of my business.

I said, you're at GS4?

He said, no, I got a. I got passed over for a four.

I'm a three.

I said, how do you feed yourself?

And he said, why?

He's making.

At the time.

This is 10 years ago, he was probably making 20 or $22,000 a year.

Oh, jeez.

And I.

He said, why?

What were you.

I said, I was a 15, and so was my wife.

And we still had trouble making ends meet.

Bloody hell.

A3.

It's no wonder they all live in this trailer park up the road from the.

From the prison.

And then they're bragging, oh, I have a double wide.

You only have a single wide.

It's.

Yeah.

I mean, this is how bad it is.

I don't.

And when I.

Getting back to the issue of corruption, and this is something that I told the BoP director was, you know, when.

When the commissary gets a shipment of Pop Tarts, like an entire pallet of Pop Tarts.

We're talking about $5,000 worth of pop Tarts.

Yeah.

And then the guard backs up his Ford F150 pickup truck and loads the entire pallet onto the pickup truck and takes it back to his double wide and sells it on Facebook, Marketplace, or on ebay.

That's unacceptable.

That is unacceptable.

Same thing with $10,000 worth of batteries or with, you know, extension cords or, you know, bags of tuna or whatever.

They steal everything.

Everything.

Because they're untrained and they're undisciplined, and they don't have any.

And they're underpaid.

And they're underpaid because they need to survive.

Yeah.

That was it.

That's crazy.

Do you.

So you mentioned as well in your book that there's a big problem in health.

Huge.

Right.

And I think that's another thing that the Bureau of Prisons need to look at, because that was a few other shocking moments that made my wife scream.

The way you were treated with just.

Even your pinky.

And other people were treated diabetes.

And I have to say, as well, John, it was quite shocking.

People dying that didn't need to die.

Yeah.

It happened all the time.

They're not treated like human beings.

And this is a big issue in the prisons.

And then you have the warden going to a terminally ill patient and saying, if you sign a document promising not to sue us, we'll let you go and die at home.

And he said, no.

And he died in a steel bunk all alone.

Do you feel that?

Did you get Any backlash about your book from the prison service?

When I had to ask this because you didn't hold back like you freaking let it rip.

And I told them, bring it because I'm not afraid of you.

Wow.

The warden repeatedly threatened me with solitary.

Repeatedly.

And I laughed at him.

Once, we were standing in the hall right by the mailroom, and he told me, if you don't stop writing this book, I'm going to put you in solitary and I'm not going to let you out.

And I said, oh, please.

I told him.

I said, warden, I've gone nose to nose with al qaeda, with hezbollah, with the iranians, and I'm supposed to be afraid of you?

Please.

I said, give me a little credit.

I said, I lived in Yemen.

Yeah.

Pakistan, Afghanistan.

I'm not afraid of loretto, Pennsylvania.

Wow.

Do you think that.

You think they were frightened of you then?

Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you why.

So my best friend was an italian, mark.

And him a lot.

Yeah, Mark.

I just talked to him yesterday.

He's.

He's like a brother.

Like a brother to me.

And so, um.

So mark was talking to the one guard that everybody hated the most.

Not me.

I never had any interaction with this guy.

He stayed on his side of the fence and I stayed on mine.

But he went by the.

By the nickname blue.

He was the only person that covered up his name tag with.

With masking tape.

He didn't want anybody to know his name.

He was also the only guard that wore a stab vest because he was so cruel, he was afraid somebody was going to legitimately take a shot at stabbing him.

So mark was talking to blue one day, and he said, blu, where are you going to be for the next quarter?

And he said, oh, I'm going to be over in central one unit.

And mark said, my friend john is in central one.

And blu said, the CIA guy?

I never mess with that guy.

And mark said, really, why?

And he said, that's all I need.

I work eight hours here and then I go out to my car and cnn standing next to it.

No, thanks.

Geez.

So what I did is I filed a freedom of information act request on myself.

Much to my surprise, I got it six weeks later.

It was mostly garbage with 250 pages.

About 20 pages were important.

And there was one from several days before I arrived in the prison.

It was a memo from the warden to all employees.

And it said, subject arriving inmate john kiriakou.

And then in these giant block letters, it just says, caution, inmate has access to the media.

I think Though that was a blessing for you.

I'm listening.

I'm like, if he didn't have that access, if he wasn't in the media, his life would have been worse.

He would have been, it would have been a Russian gulag.

Without a doubt.

Without a doubt.

And you would have disappeared essentially with gone.

Yep.

So I think, I think your media presence was the.

The.

And who knows, maybe it is going to be the thing that, that will help to change, especially now that you're talking with the Director of Prisons.

What do you think the, the.

What do you think lawyers need to try and understand from your case and from your history, your experiences there?

Because it seems to me that the lawyers really don't understand that they don't know enough of what's going on.

They don't just there to fight a case and that's it.

But should they be getting more involved?

Oh, I think they should.

I'll give you another example, a very recent example.

About three weeks ago, Senator Mike Lee went onto X Twitter and he said that a constituent of his in Utah called his office in a panic because they had a son in the Bureau of Prisons.

And the son all of a sudden just dropped out of contact.

Emails aren't being answered.

Nobody at the prison will give any information.

So Senator Lee picked up the phone and called the prison and said, I'm Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

I'm calling about my constituent.

So.

And so, yeah.

And the voice on the other end at the prison says, you have a lot of fucking nerve calling here.

And hung up on him.

A sitting US Senator.

That's crazy.

So I tweeted at him and I said, senator, I think I can help you on this.

I got a call minutes later from his chief of staff and I said, I think the constituent is in something called diesel therapy.

What is that?

Yeah, the guy asks.

And I said, whenever a prisoner is deemed to be a problem, like me, I was a problem.

And they threatened me with Diesel Therapy.

What they do, I'll give you a made up example.

Starting at FCI Loretto, where I was, they'll take you to Loretto from Loretto and they put you on the prison bus.

And the prison bus goes to a prison in a maximum security prison in northeastern Pennsylvania where you just sit and wait for the next transfer.

And then from there they take you to Harrisburg.

From Harrisburg they put you on Conair, you know, the, the bop.

Oh yeah.

They move you around so you're, you're literally, you're not traceable.

You're just.

Because when you're in what's called transportation status, you're not permitted access to a phone, to a computer, or to even a pen and paper.

And literally no one has any idea where you are.

And they can keep you in transportation status for years, transfer you to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City to Yankton, South Dakota, South Dakota to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to Lompoc.

They'll just transfer you every couple of days, every couple of weeks for the rest of your sentence.

And nobody has any idea where you are.

Wow.

Because they know they can get away with it.

And so we need lawyers to, like, step up, file injunctions, flood the courts, make the BOP respond.

They have to put an end to.

I've noticed that they don't seem to do it.

I've got a friend of mine who's a criminal lawyer, and.

Because there's no money involved.

There's no money involved.

Poor people can't pay legal bills.

See, that's the problem.

And again, it boils down to this.

It boils down to money.

Yeah.

It boils down to business.

And they can't defend themselves.

A lot of people go that are.

Yeah, man, get it.

Look, prisons are there for a reason.

If you're a really bad guy and you fucked up, you're going to go in.

Right.

There are some people who.

Society needs to be protected.

Yeah.

Pedophiles, the murderers, the violent people, the rapists, the drug traffickers.

Yeah, we need to be protected from those people.

Sure.

I would agree with that.

But there's a lot of people that don't.

That's right.

A lot.

And they don't get any reform.

And I don't see the law.

The lawyers need to make more of a noise.

Yes.

About it.

And that doesn't seem to be.

That doesn't seem to be humid.

What was it, your law firm or your lawyers?

I mean, you obviously have a great respect for them.

I was blessed.

They were giants.

They really were.

They still helping?

I mean, I don't always say, are they still helping you now?

Or to try and.

No, I mean, thank God, knock on wood.

I don't need any help.

We're still in touch.

We get together periodically for lunch.

I lecture at their law school classes.

One teaches at Georgetown and other at American University School of Law.

So, yeah.

And I've referred a half a dozen cases to them.

They're.

They're giants.

One has passed away.

Two of the others are semi retired, nearing retirement, but.

But we're still in touch.

These guys were.

Were giants in my Life.

Did they recognize the same problems in the industry, in, in, in the league?

In.

Yes.

Did they ever voice it to you join, like, look, we know this is screwed up.

This is, this is bad, but there's nothing we can do?

Constantly.

Yes, constantly.

And.

And because they recognized the problems, that's why they were criminal defense attorneys.

They took this all very, very seriously.

Yeah.

How did you cope mentally with your mental health?

You know, it's funny, I thought I was going to a minimum security work camp.

That's what the judge said.

He did say that at the beginning.

Yeah.

And actually we were killed.

Yeah.

So I thought.

I thought, I'm just gonna, you know, keep my mouth shut, do my time, go home.

And then they put me in the actual prison to further punish me.

And so I. I hadn't really prepared to protect myself mentally.

I was just kind of thrown in it.

And on the very first day that I was in the prison, I'd only been in the prison for about five hours, and there was mail call and a lady had sent me a postcard with a rose on it.

A lady from Ringgold, Georgia, who had followed my case.

And I thought, what a thoughtful thing to do.

I don't even know this woman.

And she took time out of her day to send me this postcard.

And I made a decision that very first day that I was going to respond to every letter that I received, not realizing I was going to end up answering 7,000 letters to 675 different people.

But I did.

So there were two things that passed the time for me, and it was writing letters.

Lots and lots of letters.

And writing doing time like a spy longhand, which won two literary awards.

Crazy enough, I know.

Honestly, you did that longhand.

Actually, you wrote that longhand.

And you know what?

I had to do it twice because the guards seized the manuscript.

They said it was a threat to the public safety and they destroyed it.

Oh, yeah, I remember.

Yeah, you said that in the book.

Actually, your manuscript had disappeared.

Yeah, they destroyed it.

Do you think you'll do a rewrite, Joe?

Pardon?

Do you think you'll do a follow up with that book?

No, and I'll tell you why I would.

I've written 10 books now.

That was my second.

But I've recently been signed by the Creative Artists Agency, caa.

Yeah.

And they told me in very clear English, you're gonna write fiction from now on.

Oh, dude, you definitely.

Yes, yes, right, okay, I get it.

And that's probably.

That's right up your alley.

Actually, I'm a Little intimidated by it, but I've got 10,000 words done.

Hey, look, if John Le can do it, let's face it, I'm gonna give it a shot.

He had the history, he was with the service and did the same thing as many other people do.

Yeah, I think that would be brilliant, actually.

I'm gonna try.

I'm gonna try.

I think I can do it.

My goal is to have 100,000 words by the end of the year, but it's hard.

I'm gonna try.

Dude, that's awesome.

Yeah.

I've written books myself, actually, and so I know how hard that is.

And I lost two manuscripts as I was writing them.

I was writing a book and I was tied to Simon Schuster and another one and Atria Books, and I was writing two manuscripts at the same time.

Don't ever freaking do that.

Especially when you get the blue screen of death and then you lose a manuscript.

Oh, my God.

And then I said, I sent the manuscript in for one and I sent another one in and the editor coming back and saying, I don't think this chapter should be in this book.

I'd mixed up the chapters from each book and put them and sent them in.

So I was a total freaking screw up.

So I get it.

But I think that's freaking awesome that you're doing that.

I'm trying.

It's hard work.

So did you do any legal stuff when you, I mean, when you were in, in prison, you had time.

It seemed to me that you were studying a lot as well.

I was.

I did.

I did two things.

There was a Mexican drug cartel member in my cell who asked me if I was educated when I first arrived, and I said yes.

And he said, would you write my appeal?

I said, well, I'm not a lawyer.

Well, yeah, but you're educated.

I said, yeah, you know what?

You're right.

How hard could it be to write an appeal?

So he gave me his case papers.

He was completely, totally, utterly guilty.

Plus, you know when you get into a gunfight with the DEA and they catch you in the cocaine warehouse and you're bleeding out there?

Yeah.

You're guilty.

You're guilty.

You can't, you can't.

You know, you can't get out of that.

You can't lie your way out of that.

No.

So I, I wrote the appeal.

It was all based on technicalities.

The, the appellate court acknowledged the technicalities, but they weren't, they weren't important enough to have changed the outcome of the case.

So.

So we lost.

But he told the other cartel members that I was a good guy, that I did his appeal, and that I didn't charge him anything.

He offered me.

He offered me money in the form of bagged fish, which was the currency.

I said, no, no, no.

I have people on the outside.

They put money in my commissary account.

I'm good.

And so he told everybody that I was a good guy, and I didn't charge him.

And then near the very end of my.

I'm very proud of this.

Near the very end of my sentence, I happen to be in Mark's cell.

We would.

We would have dinner, and we would hang out until it was recall, where everybody's got.

Got to go back to their own cells.

And so I'm reading the USA Today, and there was an article about the.

The Second Chance Act.

It had just been signed into law.

And I said, buddy, did you read this article?

And he said, nah, not really.

I said, this article's about you.

What do you mean?

He says.

And I said, if you have a draconian sentence, and if you.

If you had committed the same crime today, and you would have gotten a lighter sentence, you can appeal.

And I said.

He said, I. I don't even know how I would do that.

I said, I'll do it.

So I wrote the appeal, and I sent it to the Justice Department, and you had to send it to justice, and then justice would submit it to the courts.

And then I was released in February.

In August, his mother called me, and she was crying.

And I answered the phone and I said, oh, my God, what happened to him?

I thought something terrible had happened.

And she said, they're letting him go.

You won that appeal.

Wow.

I think you mentioned it in your book, didn't you?

At the end of it, I couldn't believe it, and they let him go.

You either mentioned that in your book or you mentioned a podcast.

I listened to.

Yeah, one or the other.

I'm.

I'm very happy to say Mark is now literally the most successful real estate agent on the New Jersey shore.

Is he really?

Yeah.

Do you know an example of how someone can go into an incarcerated life and come out and actually come out the other side and be successful.

He should have never been in prison in the first place.

You know, this is something also that I said in the book that there's this joke, this ongoing joke that everybody in prison's innocent.

Well, you know what?

A lot of people in prison are innocent.

No, I believe that.

I believe there's a lot of people going unnecessarily but if you've got 50.

Years hanging over your head and they're offering you two.

You know, in the words of one of my attorneys, this can be the.

A blip in your life, or it can be the defining event in your life.

Make it the blip.

Take the deal.

You think it was the.

It was probably.

It's a hard.

I know you.

I know what you're going to say, but this was a blessing for you in the end.

Well, my brother told me on the day of my arrest, he said, I know you can't possibly see this right now, but this is going to turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.

And it did sound insane when he said it, but it turned out to be true.

Now, you mentioned a couple of times you were suicidal.

Was that before you went in, or when you were in there?

Before, yeah.

How did you.

How did that.

Is that because you were.

There's an element of grief.

I'm kind of well known for dealing and helping people cope with grief, so there's an element there, obviously, that.

I see that obviously you were grieving what was.

And the life that you had was.

It was the prospect of dying in prison.

Really?

Yeah.

45 Years.

I mean, 45.

We can't.

There's.

There's.

There's no wiggle room there.

So you were anticipating that that was the end.

That was it.

Wow.

45 Years.

And they stuck with that for 10 months.

45 Years.

Take a plea.

Sure.

45 Years.

Don't take a plea.

You're still getting 45 years.

Wow.

How did you.

How did you get over that hump that.

I'm gonna fight that.

My wife told me they have consistently underestimated your resolve.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're far tougher than they think you are, and you can fight this.

And my lawyers, they wanted to go to trial.

We talked about it until literally the last minute.

And I was fully prepared to go to trial.

And.

Oh, my God, I might have accidentally said some of the horrible crimes against humanity and war crimes that I witnessed in 15 years at the CIA while on the stand, testifying on my own behalf.

Didn't want that.

They didn't want that.

No.

And I know that other agencies in other places of the world didn't think that was the right thing either.

That's right.

And that was a big.

You know what?

I just happen to have this.

I was recently given the highest award that the Irish government bestows.

And of the last seven recipients, the last eight recipients, it's the President of Ireland, the President of Finland, 5 Nobel Peace Prize winners, and me.

The government of Luxembourg gave me a medal for truth telling.

I'm celebrated in Greece and in Iceland and elsewhere.

It's the United States that's wrong on these issues.

Other countries recognize it.

John, why didn't you leave?

Why did you stay in America?

I suppose that's a loaded question.

Well, I've got five kids here and.

Well, that's obviously.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

And my, My wife is here.

I'm, I'm proud to say that I've become a dual US Greek citizen.

I vote in Greece.

Right.

I hope to buy some property in Greece by the end of the year and I'm going to split my time, but damn it, this is my country and I'm not going to let them force me out of it.

You are very patriotic, contrary to what a lot of people say.

You come across to me from someone who's a Scotsman, who's coming from the uk I do see you as very patriotic.

What do you mean, contrary to what some people say?

Well, a lot of people.

Some people will say there's that whole idea he's a traitor.

He's a, you know, he loves America.

And I think that's unfair where people label you wrong because you're definitely only morons.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

Say stupid things like that.

You know, I've actually written about this a couple of times because treason is specifically defined in the Constitution.

It's providing aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war, period.

We throw around that word, treason, traitor, all the time, and it's become meaningless.

It has.

And I'll put my record and reputation up against anybody's.

Anybody's in America.

I think I've got to get you back on this because I'd love to dive into the whistleblower side of things for the legal industry, because I think that's.

There's a lot to say.

I have to get you back.

If you will, if you will come back on.

I'd love to talk about that and maybe even get, get some lawyers on, because I think that's a, That's a big thing.

Do you think.

I mean, you have had.

Now you're enjoying success and you may be a catalyst to potential change, possibly, I hope.

Do you think that, do you think you're going to have any potential power to change anything because of your infamy now and the way that you've if.

I do, if there's going to be change, it will be only because of this infamy that I've developed.

I.

Somebody told me the other day that they saw a marketing study saying that I am the most popular person in America among males between 15 and 30.

Really?

Yeah.

Like, where did that come from?

Dude, I think you're going to end up in GQ magazine at some point.

I did a thing for gq.

Yeah.

I'm embracing it.

People listen to me because I tell the truth.

And so I'm running with it.

Josh.

What my wife said.

My wife is no fool.

And my wife said when she listened to, she said, he's speaking from the heart and he's telling the truth.

I'm trying my best.

And you can tell everybody else has got different agendas.

And I think, yeah, you've definitely got a lot to say.

And I think your experiences, Jon, have been absolutely phenomenal.

And I do want to get you back on.

There's a lot that we can talk about on help lawyer.

And I think there's a lot of our lawyers will be really interested to see this.

I think we've definitely got to do more of it, the whistleblower thing, because I think there's going to be more of it.

A lot more of it.

There's a lot to say and I think there's a lot to say that lawyers especially would be interested in.

Yeah, definitely.

I think this has been awesome, just having a general.

A chat to get to know you and let everybody know what you're up to and how they can read your books.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

I've got a whole bunch of books out and coming out.

There's one coming out next month, one coming out the month after.

They're all on Amazon.

Just go to John Kiriakou books and they'll all pop right up.

But I'm also starting a new podcast in just the next two and a half weeks on YouTube.

It's called John Kiriakou's briefing room.

And I'm really proud to say that I've got a podcast.

We're just finishing the second season.

It's on Apple podcasts and Spotify, called John Kiriakou's dead drop.

That is.

We listen to it.

It's crazy popular.

I can't believe we get these numbers in the morning.

And I'm like, you've gotta be kidding, dude.

You started.

Joe and I, we finished your book, we started another book.

And Joe was like, ah, this is a book, not one of your Books.

It was another book.

She said, this is born and it's not something else.

You got another one of John's.

Okay.

I said, well, I've got Dead Drop.

Let's get that.

So downloaded it.

And she loved the stories of you in Greece and your mother and all this because she loves to hear about the stories.

So.

So we've been listening to Dead Drop.

Thank you.

And Apple Podcast likes it so much, they asked me to do a different one in season three they wanted me to do.

They're calling it, oh, The Spy's Guide 2.

So I'm going to do the Spy's Guide to London, Paris, Vienna, Athens, Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, Bangkok.

Go all over the world.

Tourists see a city one way, spies see it in a completely different way.

So we'll do each city from a spy's perspective.

I love that.

I love that.

Where's your favorite city then?

In Europe?

In the uk.

Well, you know, I'm a sucker for London.

Are you really?

I am.

I spent the happiest year of my life in London.

But I love, love, love Athens.

I mean, I love a lot of places in Europe, but I love Athens.

I love Manama and Abu Dhabi.

There are a lot of places that I would be perfectly happy.

I hate Buenos Aires.

I was based in Kent and I had to travel to HQ from Kent, from Canterbury, four o' clock in the morning, up I got a train, two hours in the rat race, then into Kings Road and the barracks there.

And I hated.

But at.

I was living in Cantabis, was married and I used to be based in Kent.

And Sir John Moore, I'm an ex military, obviously, and I hated it.

I freaking hated London.

And I remember when I came here and my wife had said, look, we've got to go to London and get our visa stamped.

I'm like, oh, God, are you kidding?

Hated it.

But I love it.

From the Spies Guide to Vienna.

I'd love to hear that because I think that's the seat of tradecraft right there.

It really was.

It was Vienna, the seat of tradecraft.

This guy's back to Vienna will be phenomenal.

We'll do a pit podcast episode on that one.

We'll have fun with that one.

John, I want to thank you.

I know I could speak to you for hours and hours.

There's so much to say, but I definitely want to get you back on and whatever we can do in our legal network to support you and support the work you're doing.

Let's do that.

Anything you want.

Any listeners, any lawyers.

Anything you want.

Any of the lawyers.

Guys, if you're running your law firm and you want John to come in and talk, please.

Happy to talk.

Happy to do it.

Get in touch with him.

We've got 800, nearly 800 law firms in the network, so I'm sure somebody's going to hear this, so great.

Get in touch with them.

John Kiriakou, thank you for being my guest.

I'm glad you didn't speak about all the stuff that you've been speaking about.

Oh, I'm so glad.

This was refreshing.

Thank you.

I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to have you back on.

I look forward to it.

Thanks for the invitation.

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