Joe Rogan Experience #2392 - John Kiriakou

Summary

In this episode, John Kiriakou shares his firsthand experiences as a former CIA counter-terrorism officer. He delves into the agency's controversial practices, including the torture of detainees, which he was the first to publicly confirm. Kiriakou's journey as a whistleblower led to significant personal consequences, including imprisonment.

Key takeaways

• 1John Kiriakou: Former CIA officer who confirmed the agency's torture of detainees.
• 2Served nearly 2 years in federal prison as punishment for whistleblowing.
• 3The episode discusses the practices of the CIA regarding detainee treatment.
• 4Kiriakou provides insights into the implications of whistleblowing on national security and personal freedom.

Source

Transcript excerpt

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. So, you were saying you replace Mike Baker? Yeah, Mike's a great guy. He was a good officer. He was uh he doesn't really talk about his work a lot. Maybe it's cuz a lot of years have passed, but he was the real deal. I replaced him in Athens and he had done a lot of preliminary leg work in Athens. Athens was a tough place at the time. Uh the American government spent more money on security in Athens than they spent anywhere else in the world, including Beirut. Why? There it was a combination of two things. There were two indigenous Greek groups that were exceedingly dangerous. One was called Revolutionary Organization 17 November. They had killed the CIA station chief, two US defense attaches, just bad guys all around. The other was called um popular revolutionary struggle. And then on top of that, you had Abu Nidal, the Libyans, the PFLP, the PFLPGC, the DFLP, everybody was there because there was this informal agreement between the Greek government of uh Andreas Papandreo at the time and these terrorist groups that if you don't kill Greeks, we'll leave you alone. Oh boy. Yeah. But killing Americans wasn't part of the deal. So, it was every man for himself. Wow. Your story is pretty nuts, man. It's And your story of getting in trouble and eventually going to prison for something that was com what they were doing, what you reported on was completely illegal and you were completely honest about it. Um, and it was essentially about the US torture program, right? Tell us how this all started. ...

Excerpt from The Joe Rogan Experience, Oct 10, 2025. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.