The Ex-CIA Agent Going Viral Asking for a Trump Pardon

One greeting a fewer weeks ago, John Kiriakou got a telephone from his 16-year-old niece. “Uncle John, you’re exploding connected TikTok,” helium recalls her telling him.

Kiriakou, a 61-year-old ex-CIA serviceman who went to situation successful 2013 for disclosing classified accusation related to the agency’s Middle East torture program, had nary thought what she was talking about. He doesn’t person a TikTok account. He’s much of a Facebook lurker, if anything. But clips from a podcast Kiriakou filmed successful January with Steven Bartlett, who hosts the Diary of a CEO show, which has much than 15 cardinal subscribers connected YouTube, were going viral without his intervention.

For astir 2 decades, Kiriakou has been connected a run to person a statesmanlike pardon. From 1990 to 2004, Kiriakou served arsenic a CIA expert and counterterrorism officer, starring a 2002 cognition to seizure Abu Zubaydah, who ran a grooming campy for al Qaeda fighters. During his detention, the CIA waterboarded Zubaydah. Kiriakou aboriginal discussed the agency’s torture tactics successful a 2007 interrogation with ABC News, wherever helium went connected to service arsenic a coercion consultant. Five years later, the Justice Department charged Kiriakou, who past pleaded blameworthy to disclosing the sanction of a covert operative who participated successful CIA interrogations to journalists.

Though Kiriakou finished his situation condemnation successful 2015, helium wants a statesmanlike pardon to wide his sanction and get backmost decades of pension contributions. “I had 20 years of arrogant national service. My pension was $700,000,” says Kiriakou. “Without that pension, I'm going to person to enactment until the time I die. It was incorrect of them to instrumentality it from me, and I privation it back. I tin lone get it backmost with a pardon.”

In caller years, he’s applied done authoritative channels and tried navigating President Donald Trump’s informal and costly clemency market. So far, his requests person gone unanswered. Now, he’s trying thing different, appearing connected immoderate of the precise aforesaid podcasts Trump did passim the 2024 election. Clips of him chatting with Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, among others, won’t halt making the rounds—and the net is loving it.

When Kiriakou sat down with Bartlett for the January podcast, they had a superior speech discussing his vocation astatine the CIA, his whistleblowing, and, ultimately, his astir two-year imprisonment. But it’s the stories Kiriakou tells passim the episode—about gathering quality successful countries similar Pakistan oregon detailing the CIA’s MKUltra program—that person drawn millions of views successful “brainrot”-style edits connected platforms similar TikTok and Instagram Reels.

“See you successful 2 scrolls,” 1 commenter wrote connected a clip of Kiriakou, joking astir however often videos of him appeared connected their For You page.

One idiosyncratic who goes by the grip @_bamboclat is credited by Know Your Meme for popularizing these edits of Kiriakou telling unimaginable stories astir his clip abroad. These clips person received astir 50 cardinal views connected the account.

“I archetypal recovered retired astir him done podcasts connected TikTok. I deliberation the crushed wherefore everyone is successful emotion with him is due to the fact that he’s a bully storyteller,” says @_bamboclat, who declined to stock his afloat name. “He’s been telling it for 20 years. Slowing down and speeding it up, the meme mentation of him, is beauteous fashionable with Gen Z and the TikTok audience.”

The virality has turned Kiriakou into a taste phenomenon. Following his newfound popularity, the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) signed him. Cameo—the level that allows users to petition personalized videos from their favourite celebrities—recruited Kiriakou past month. So far, he’s made much than 700 videos for fans for astir $150 apiece. In 1 Cameo video, Kiriakou is asked to outcry retired a woman’s nail salon. The clip is being utilized arsenic an advertisement for the concern connected TikTok.