Former CIA Officer John Kiriakou Indicted for Allegedly Disclosing Classified Information, Including Covert Officer’s Identity, to Journalists and Lying to CIA’s Publications Board

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Former CIA officer John Kiriakou was indicted today for allegedly repeatedly disclosing classified information to journalists, including the name of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the role of another CIA employee in classified activities, Justice Department officials announced. Kiriakou was charged in a five-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia, after he was initially charged in a criminal complaint and arrested in January 2012.

The indictment charges Kiriakou with one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly illegally disclosing the identity of a covert officer and with three counts of violating the Espionage Act for allegedly illegally disclosing national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it. The indictment also charges him with one count of making false statements for allegedly lying to the Publications Review Board of the CIA in an unsuccessful attempt to trick the CIA into allowing him to include classified information in a book he was seeking to publish.

Kiriakou, 47, of Arlington, Virginia, was a CIA intelligence officer between 1990 and 2004, serving at CIA Headquarters and in various classified overseas assignments. He remains free on bond and is expected to be arraigned on April 13, 2012 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.

The charges result from an investigation that was triggered by a classified defense filing in January 2009, which contained classified information the defense had not been given through official government channels, and, in part, by the discovery in spring 2009 of photographs of certain government employees and contractors in the materials of high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The investigation revealed that, on multiple occasions, one of the journalists to whom Kiriakou is alleged to have illegally disclosed classified information in turn disclosed that information to a defense team investigator and that this information was reflected in the classified defense filing and enabled the defense team to take or obtain surveillance photographs of government personnel. There are no allegations of criminal activity by any members of the defense team for the Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The indictment alleges that Kiriakou made illegal disclosures about two CIA employees and their involvement in classified operations to two journalists on multiple occasions between 2007 and 2009. In one case, by revealing an employee’s name as a CIA officer, Kiriakou allegedly disclosed classified information—as the employee was and remains covert (identified in the indictment as “Covert Officer A”). In the second case, Kiriakou allegedly disclosed the name and contact information of another CIA employee, identified in the indictment as “Officer B,” whose participation in an operation to capture terrorism subject Abu Zubaydah in 2002 was then classified. Kiriakou’s alleged disclosures occurred prior to a June 2008 front-page story in The New York Times disclosing Officer B’s alleged role in the Abu Zubaydah operation.

The indictment was announced by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who was appointed special attorney in 2010 to supervise the investigation. He announced the charges with James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office of the FBI. Together, they thanked the CIA for its very substantial assistance in the investigation, as well as the Air Force Office of Special Investigations for its significant assistance.

The Justice Department’s National Security Division, working with the FBI, began the investigation. To avoid the risk of encountering a conflict of interest because of the pending prosecutions of some of the high-value detainees, Mr. Fitzgerald was assigned to supervise the investigation conducted by a team of attorneys from the Southern District of New York, the Northern District of Illinois, and the Counterespionage Section of the National Security Division who were not involved in pending prosecutions of the detainees.

The count charging violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, as well as each count of violating the Espionage Act, carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, and making false statements carries a maximum prison term of five years. Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000. If convicted, the court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal sentencing statutes and the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.

An indictment contains only allegations and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The government is being represented in court by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Iris Lan (Southern District of New York) and Mark E. Schneider (Northern District of Illinois) and Trial Attorney Ryan Fayhee of the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Owings (Eastern District of Virginia) will assist in the matter under local court rules.