Progressive Commentary Hour - 06.05.18

On the CIA, how it is changing under Trump. 

 

John Kiriakou is a former CIA analyst, counterterrorism operations officer, case office and was a senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  He was later John Kerry's intelligence adviser. After 911, John was chief of counterterrorist operations in Pakistan, later becoming the Executive Assistant to the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations. Later he turned whistleblower over the CIA's torture policy practiced against prisoners in custody, becoming the first government official to confirm the use of waterboarding on al-Qaeda inmates.  He was tried for passing on classified information that included the name of a fellow CIA official to a reporter and served two years in a federal correctional facility. The sixth indicted whistleblower by Obama under the Espionage Act.  Nevertheless, John had received 10 exceptional awards from the CIA and the State Department's Meritorious Honor Award. He has received the Joe Callaway Awaqrd for Civic Courage as a national security whistleblower, in 2013 the Peacemaker of the Year Award from the Justice Center, in 2016 the Sam Adams Award. among others. He has written several books, including "The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror," and more recently "Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison." His website is JohnKiriakou.com