John Kiriakou
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
He goes, from today, you're with the Italians.
And they became my closest friends.
I mean, I got a book out of it.
They were absolutely wonderful people.
Honorable, honest, fun, the smallest so-called gang in the prison, but the one that commanded the most respect.
And once word was out that I was with the Italians, it was hands off.
And it was thanks to one guy.
Shout out to Mark Lanzalotti.
And he saw in the New York Times I was going to be assigned to that prison on a Sunday.
I was assigned on Thursday.
And he took it upon himself to go to every one of the Italians to say, there's a CIA guy coming here.
The FBI are cops and rats.
The CIA protected us from the Muslims.
And they're like, oh, okay.
And so it was, you know, welcome.
God, it has to be insanely stressful.