Joe Rogan Experience #2392 - John Kiriakou

Kiriakou recounts his nearly 13-year CIA career, his refusal to be trained in 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' and how a 2007 ABC News interview confirming the CIA tortured prisoners triggered an espionage prosecution. He details how rapport-based FBI interrogation of Abu Zubaydah produced real intelligence while CIA torture shut him down, and blames John Brennan for a personal vendetta that landed him 23 months in prison. The conversation widens into the 'deep state,' FBI entrapment cases, January 6th informants, MK Ultra, Russiagate, AI disinformation, and Israeli/AIPAC influence on US politics. Throughout, Kiriakou frames himself as a patriot betrayed by a politicized intelligence apparatus while still defending the need for a clean CIA.

• Kiriakou says he was the only one of 14 officers who refused enhanced-interrogation training, and was passed over for promotion for a 'shocking lack of commitment to counterterrorism.'
  00:07:20
• Claims at least two prisoners died of hypothermia from the CIA's 'cold cell' technique and were buried in holes dug next to the interrogation building.
  00:11:30
• Argues torture was ineffective: FBI agent Ali Soufan got actionable intelligence from Abu Zubaydah through rapport, which stopped once the CIA took over and tortured him.
  00:21:59
• Says John Brennan ordered the attorney general to 'charge him anyway and make him defend himself' even after DOJ concluded he hadn't committed espionage.
  00:33:54
• Brennan was reportedly so angry at the short sentence he had Kiriakou sent to an actual low-medium prison instead of the agreed minimum-security camp, and told officials to 'make it as difficult as possible.'
  01:00:00
• Describes guards trying to set him up for new charges, including telling an Iraqi inmate to kill him, and a Taliban spokesman being transferred into his prison for four days.
  01:18:39
• Says ChatGPT invented a false education history for him and fabricated 14 fake scholarly article links for his university course, while Perplexity got his bio correct.
  02:01:24
• Claims the Obama-era NDAA legalized government propaganda aimed at the American people, originating from a dispute over a Cuba-directed radio station.
  02:14:26

• The US spent more on security in Athens than anywhere in the world, including Beirut, due to terror groups like Revolutionary Organization 17 November.
  00:00:32
• Only about 20% of MK Ultra documents survive because the CIA director ordered them destroyed after the Church Committee said not to.
  00:12:35
• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 1996 'Bojinka' plot to fly up to 14 jets into US buildings was foiled when a cleaning lady found the plans and called police.
  00:24:01
• The CIA paid contract psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen about $108 million to design and run the torture program.
  00:28:40
• Kiriakou notes Sharon Scranage, who got CIA officers killed in Ghana, got 9 months, while he was offered 45 years for whistleblowing.
  00:54:47
• Under Obama, eight people were charged with espionage for speaking to the media versus only three in all of 1917-2009.
  01:45:42
• At the Dasht-i-Leili massacre, around 2,000 Taliban prisoners suffocated in shipping containers; Kiriakou says only 14 survived.
  01:46:15
• Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving PM, has never won more than 27% of the vote in any election.
  01:53:03
• Kiriakou states the US has roughly 190 military bases in 144 countries while China invests in trains, schools and infrastructure.
  01:57:44
• Kiriakou says the CIA stopped letting Israeli Mossad/Shin Bet officers into headquarters because their gifts were packed with listening devices.
  02:27:53

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