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 Kiriakou 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 recruited by the CIA beginning in the late 1980s, but in a very odd way that is no longer legal,” he said in the video.

Kiriakou said upon completion of his undergraduate degree in 1986 and master’s degree in legislative affairs at in 1988 from GW, he was content with going into public service as a diplomatic affairs official or seeking out a job on Capitol Hill, but Professor Post’s encouragement and recommendation secured his role at the CIA. Throughout his time at GW, Kiriakou said his renowned professors, like Islamic scholar Sayed Hussein Nasser, political science and international affairs professor Bernie Reich and Middle East politics and Israeli politics professor Maurice Roumani, included lectures about ethics and ethical behavior in foreign policy in their courses, lessons he would later take with him into his career as he navigated complex issues surrounding Middle Eastern affairs.

“He always used to downplay it, saying that, ‘I just made the introductions. You’re the one that did the heavy lifting,” Kiriakou said. “I used to say, ‘I know that I had to pass all the tests, but I would have never made it to the tests without your help.’”

Arriving at the CIA in 1990, Kiriakou said the agency put him on the Iraq desk to gain foundational knowledge of the agency because he was new to the job and “nothing ever happened there.” That sentiment quickly changed in August 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, thrusting Kiriakou and his knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs from his GW degree into the limelight. 

“I get to work and my boss says, ‘Don’t take your jacket off. We’re going to the White House,’” Kiriakou said. “An hour later, I’m standing in the Oval Office with the President, the Vice President, the National Security Advisor, the director of the CIA and my boss.”

In 1997, Kiriakou said his boss transferred him to counterterrorism operations in Athens, Greece, a position he said he felt qualified for given he could speak both Greek and Arabic, one of the job’s leading requirements. 

Kiriakou said he remained in the Greek capital until early 2000, returning to the CIA’s headquarters in McLean, Virginia, over a year before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

He said he was at the CIA’s headquarters the morning of the attacks, about to head to the White House for a meeting with then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, when he saw a television screen showing the images of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in flames. Just as he was talking with a secretary about the incident at the North Tower, he said he watched the second plane hit the South Tower.

Kiriakou said Cofer Black, the then-director of the CIA’s counterterrorist unit, stood up on his desk and told a crowd of roughly 200 people in the office that the United States was at war. He said Black told the group they would all have to fight terrorists, and that not everybody would return home.

“We all volunteered to go to Afghanistan and fight, and in the end, we all ended up doing our part,” Kiriakou said. “We only lost a couple of guys.”

It was the War on Terror that followed the 9/11 attacks that would give Kiriakou his most notable rise to prominence. 

In late 2007, Kiriakou received national attention for his ABC News interview with Ross, where he disclosed information about the U.S.’s torture of Zubaydah — a high-ranking Al-Qaeda official the CIA detained in March 2002 in the wake of 9/11. Kiriakou said he led the team that captured Zubaydah, but emphasized that his direct role in the operation ended once the agency captured Zubaydah.

He said he agreed to the interview after Ross told Kiriakou he had a source that claimed Kiriakou had tortured Zubaydah — which he said was an “absolutely untrue” claim he had to rectify. In the interview, Kiriakou gave insight into the agency’s torture practices, highlighting how the agency utilized waterboarding to extract information about the planning of 9/11 from Zubaydah at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Kiriakou said he was under the impression his interview with Ross would not add much to the pre-existing national conversation around the agency’s torture program, given that reports of the government’s torture of detainees had been floating around for years. However, after the ABC News interview, Kiriakou became the first government official to publicly reveal information about the torture program’s existence, specifically about waterboarding a detainee to get them to reveal information. 

“I just decided, I’m gonna tell the truth, I’m gonna give him this interview, and I’m gonna tell the truth,” Kiriakou said.

Nearly nine years after leaving the CIA, officials arrested and imprisoned Kiriakou for two and a half years after leaking the name of a covert CIA agent to a freelance journalist, who published the information in the New York Times. 

Since his 2015 release, Kiriakou has pivoted to authoring nine books on topics like U.S.-Iran relations and his time in prison. He has also won awards for his whistleblowing efforts, including the PEN First Amendment Award for his disclosure of the CIA’s torture program. 

Kiriakou said his recent resurgence in fame via social media has been a “gratifying” experience, adding that he’s appreciative of how younger generations are taking the story of the CIA’s torture program “seriously,” and wanting to become more aware of the agency’s inner workings.  

“I’ve provided this window into an organization that everybody has always been interested in, but wasn’t really allowed to see the inside,” Kiriakou said. “I’m happy to have played a part.”