CIA whistleblower claims Obama-era espionage charges against him were a test run for targeting Trump

Former CIA counterterrorism chief John Kiriakou said his 2012 prosecution was a trial run for the Democratic Party's "template" for lawfare later used against President Donald Trump.

Kiriakou, the CIA officer who led the team that captured al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah, blew the whistle on the agency’s waterboarding program over a decade ago. He was jailed for nearly two years after the Obama administration charged him under the Espionage Act and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) for disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer.

Kiriakou claims his conviction was a test case for federal prosecutors. He argues that by testing it on a former CIA officer, the government refined the legal tactics it would later use against President Donald Trump and members of his circle.

"Brett Tolman, the former U.S. attorney from Trump One, former U.S. attorney for Utah, said the Kiriakou case was the template," Kiriakou said on the "Hang Out with Sean Hannity" podcast, adding, "The template for the Democratic Party's policy of lawfare."

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Kiriakou claims federal prosecutors wanted to test the tactics on a "nobody" before targeting larger political rivals, including General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and eventually President Donald Trump.

He described a system that he says bankrupts targets and ruins their reputations, leaving them unable to fight back. 

"The next thing you know, you're drowning in millions of dollars of legal debt, your reputation is ruined," Kiriakou explained, adding, "Of course there's a deep state and it's dangerous."

Kiriakou cited what he described as a classified memo exchange among senior Obama administration officials. He alleged that then-CIA Director John Brennan pushed for espionage charges against him, despite what he said were concerns from the Justice Department. He said the effort was meant to force him into a costly legal defense.

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It’s a technique he claims was later used against Trump, and that there are people in the federal bureaucracy who know how to "ruin" even a president.

"There are people in places like the CIA, the FBI, NSA, who are there for 25, 30, even 35 years and they know presidents come and go every four or eight years and they can outwait this president," Kiriakou said.

"If this president does something that they don't like, they know exactly how they can ruin him," he added.

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While Kiriakou maintains his prosecution was a political test run, a 2013 press release from the Justice Department accused him of revealing the identity of a covert CIA officer to a journalist.

"John Kiriakou betrayed the trust bestowed upon him by the United States and he betrayed his colleagues whose secrecy is their only safety," then-U.S. Attorney MacBride said in a statement.

"John Kiriakou put the life of a covert officer at risk; he put the officer’s family in danger; and he exposed our nation’s vital secrets," he added.

Watch the full interview with John Kiriakou on YouTube.