John Kiriakou

Whoa.

If I would just take a plea, I turned down the plea, much to the consternation of my attorneys, who then told me that they would resign as my attorneys if I didn't take the plea.

Because I was realistically, they said, facing 12 to 18 years.

Take the 23 months and make it go away.

And so I did.

And you know, the funny thing, Mark, is that

I was at the CIA a long time, and I would have assumed that they knew me.

And if they thought that prison would silence me, they didn't know me at all.

So I did my 23 months, and I've been a vocal critic of the CIA and of torture and of human rights abuses ever since.

Well, I'll tell you something that's more out there.

When I was nine years old,

My father took me to an auction and he bought a box of junk.

I still remember he paid 50 cents for it.

It was just a box of just junk that was left over.

But that junk happened to include a shortwave radio and it opened up an entire new world for me.

And I told my parents when I was nine years old that I wanted to be a spy when I grew up.

Wow.

And they thought that was cute, and they bought me a set of walkie-talkies that year for Christmas.

And then when I was 16, I told them I wanted to be a spy in the Middle East.

And my father said, come on, still with the spy thing?