Before Central Intelligence Agency whistleblower John Kiriakou exposed the agency’s torture program, he sat in the classrooms of GW, mastering his knowledge in Middle Eastern affairs.
Originally recruited to join the agency in 1988 by his then-professor and former CIA agent Jerrold Post, Kiriakou went on to spend nearly eight years with the CIA before departing in 2004 and later exposing the agency’s inhumane torture operations. Today, Kiriakou has seen a resurgence in fame across social media, telling his engaging stories about his recruitment to the agency from GW and whistleblowing experience on podcasts and interviews, which regularly garner millions of views from intrigued audiences.
Among some of his most viral moments that users have clipped on TikTok include an excerpt of Kiriakou discussing how he blew the whistle on the CIA’s waterboarding of Al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah — an action that added to the growing list of confirmed CIA torture operations from the early 2000s — in 2007 in an interview with ABC News journalist Brian Ross. Years later, in 2013, a separate interview with a freelance journalist, where Kriakou revealed the name of a covert CIA agent, ultimately led to his brief imprisonment, an experience he also discusses in clips from his podcast that have found popularity on TikTok.
In one TikTok post from @john_kiriakou_clips, an account with over 22,000 followers, a clip shows Kiriakou detailing his recruitment journey from GW to the CIA.
“I was...
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