John Kiriakou Pleads Guilty - Only Person Jailed Over CIA Torture Program

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou pleaded guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act after being indicted under the Espionage Act for publicly confirming that waterboarding was official U.S. government policy. In a profound miscarriage of justice, Kiriakou became the only person connected to the CIA’s torture program to serve prison time—not for conducting torture, but for revealing it.

The 2007 Whistleblowing

In December 2007, Kiriakou became the first CIA officer to publicly confirm in an ABC News interview that the CIA had waterboarded prisoners, that waterboarding constituted torture, and that torture was an official U.S. government policy rather than the work of rogue agents. His public statements contradicted the Bush administration’s narrative and provided crucial confirmation of systematic torture in CIA black sites.

Aggressive Prosecution

Immediately after Kiriakou’s interview, the CIA submitted a crimes report to the Department of Justice, initiating what would become a five-year investigation. Between 2007 and 2012, the CIA sent at least six additional crimes reports to DOJ as Kiriakou continued making public statements about the torture program. Despite the DOJ initially declining to prosecute, the Obama administration later indicted Kiriakou, making him the sixth whistleblower charged under the Espionage Act by Obama—a law designed to punish spies, not whistleblowers.

The Plea Deal

Facing up to 45 years in prison and mounting legal costs that threatened his family’s financial security, Kiriakou accepted a plea agreement in October 2012. He pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) in exchange for a 30-month sentence and dismissal of all Espionage Act charges. Kiriakou became the first person convicted under the IIPA in 27 years.

Prison Sentence

On February 28, 2013, Kiriakou began serving his sentence at the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Loretto, Pennsylvania. He was released on February 3, 2015, after serving 23 months, followed by three months of house arrest at his home in Arlington, Virginia.

The Irony of Selective Prosecution

The prosecution of Kiriakou highlighted a grotesque double standard in government accountability: CIA officers who actually conducted waterboarding and other forms of torture were never charged. Officials who ordered the torture program, attorneys who wrote legal memos attempting to justify torture, and the CIA official who destroyed videotaped evidence of torture all avoided prosecution. Even the Senate Intelligence Committee’s comprehensive report on CIA torture, completed in 2014, resulted in no criminal charges against torturers.

Significance

Kiriakou’s case became a symbol of the Obama administration’s inverted priorities in accountability. Rather than prosecuting those who committed war crimes, the administration aggressively pursued the whistleblower who exposed them. The selective prosecution sent a clear message: revealing government crimes carries greater legal risk than committing them. The case demonstrated how the Espionage Act and IIPA could be weaponized against truth-tellers while protecting those who authorized and implemented illegal torture programs that violated both U.S. and international law.