“The CIA will so ruin a person whose politics they don't like, that he can never work again. I did 23 months in a federal prison. I paid my so-called debt to society.”

In this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview, Mehdi Hasan sits down with former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who was imprisoned for blowing the whistle on CIA torture, to discuss his life as an agent, Trump, Israel, Epstein and more.

After a career in the CIA, Kiriakou’s decision to blow the whistle on the secret torture program led him to imprisonment. Kiriakou explains how he thought the CIA was going to put him through Bush-era torture, and Mehdi probes into Kiriakou’s conflicting statements regarding the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation technique.

They also discuss if Jeffrey Epstein was an Israeli spy, the role of Israel in pushing the U.S. into war with Iran and why he chose to work for Russian state media after prison. He also details Trump’s phone calls, Rudy Giuliani’s fees, and whether or not he endorsed a racist far-right candidate.

Note: This interview was taped prior to the resignation of U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on May 22, 2026.

This conversation was published on zeteo.com last week. If you want early, exclusive access to this kind of independent, unfiltered journalism — subscribe to our Substack here: https://zeteo.com/subscribe

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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
02:04 CIA Career
10:04 Becoming a Personality
18:42 Jeffrey Epstein
24:06 The U.S., Israel and Iran
33:27 Cuba
35:51 AI and Tech in Warfare
39:57 Personal Politics
44:43 Working for Russia
48:48 Trump

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