Top Secrets: The CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou

The Dr. Phil Podcast

Dr. Phil McGraw

Mental Health, Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Would you risk it all to expose the truth? Discover the extraordinary story of John Kiriakou.

Dr. Phil welcomes John Kiriakou, a former CIA counterterrorism officer and best-selling author, who sacrificed his freedom to expose one of the government’s darkest secrets. Kiriakou played a pivotal role in counterterrorism after 9/11 but made headlines when he revealed the CIA’s use of waterboarding, denouncing it as torture. This brave act led to his indictment under the Espionage Act—a law meant to punish spies—and landed him in prison for 23 months.

In this thought-provoking episode, John shares his story, from his work in intelligence to his fight for transparency and ethical treatment of whistleblowers. As the recipient of the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, Kiriakou reflects on the moral dilemmas of his career and the ongoing battle to champion human rights. With Dr. Phil, he explores the critical question: What happens when exposing the truth comes at the ultimate personal cost?

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Transcript

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1:05.0	Terms and conditions apply. We had two million dollars in cash in the van with us in two duffel bags.
1:13.2	And my colleague said, what would possess you to cheat the CIA out of 20 bucks?
1:17.4	If you're going to steal, steal millions.
1:20.6	And we looked at each other and laughed.
1:22.5	Yeah, it'd be a little hard to pass the polygraph on that, right?
1:34.3	Yeah. pass the polygraph on that, right? Today I am honored to welcome to the Dr. Phil podcast, a true patriot, whistleblower,
1:40.3	and author John Kariaku.
1:42.4	Now, John is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a senior
1:47.6	investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and played a key role in counterterrorism
1:53.3	in the aftermath of 9-11 and beyond. John felt compelled to expose some practices being employed by the CIA that he just did not feel morally comfortable with.
2:09.7	We're talking about the things that he considered to be outright torture, such things as waterboarding, for example.
2:20.6	Now, some of these disclosures,
2:30.3	I'm going to say led to his indictment, and I'm not sure that that's exactly right. We'll let him describe what he thinks led to his indictment. There's what was said publicly that led to his
	...

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