S1E25 The Whistleblower
4/27/202650 min
THE BLURB: As John's date with prison looms, he begins prepping - financially and mentally. In the end, John's plea deal would put him inside for 30 months reduceable to 23. At least it would be in a relatively benign, low security work camp setting. That was what the prosecution agreed to! Meanwhile, public opinion about John begins to shift; They go from seeing him as a pariah to a whistleblower - and an American hero. Still, prison is prison and John approaches his sentence more and more like a mission to continue speaking the truth, damn the consequences.
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First 90 secondsJohn Kiriakou· Host0:00
This podcast, it's a Costard and Touchstone production. The FBI called me. They needed help, they said, with a case similar to one involving a Japanese diplomat who had tried to recruit me. So I went into their offices, happy to be of service. In fact, my exact words were, "Anything for the FBI." The conversation started amicably enough, talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers, people we knew, chitchat. Then the topic turned to my book, The Reluctant Spy, and the questions began to get more pointed, more hostile. I began to realize this wasn't a conversation. This was an interrogation. Neither the good cop FBI agent nor the bad cop giving me a death stare gave a rat's ass about any Japanese diplomats. No, I was their focus, and the fact that I had ratted out the CIA's torture program to Brian Ross at ABC News, that's what they cared about. When they finally told me out loud that I was the subject of their investigation, I was shocked, but not too shocked to say the one thing that saved my ass and kept them from arresting me right then and there. I said, "I want to see my lawyer." [upbeat music] I'm John Kiriakou. Welcome to Dead Drop: What Makes a Spy Tick. This is another episode in our series, What Makes This Spy Tick, and it's the last episode in this part of my story. But not to worry, there's