The Whistleblowers

Jun 15, 2024 05:33 Fighting for violent sexual assault survivors Most sexual assaults go unreported for a variety of reasons: It’s his word versus hers; the victim feels embarrassed, ashamed, or humiliated; or the trauma is so severe that the victim can’t bring herself to report the crime, lest she be called to testify in court and relive the whole nightmare. On this episode of the Whistleblowers,...

Jun 8, 2024 05:36 The critical importance of whistleblowers There have been so many important whistleblowers over the years—big names like Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Bradley Birkenfeld, Annie Machon, and Katherine Gunn, just to name a few—that you wouldn’t be wrong to think that official opinion, the opinion of governments, had changed so that these truthtellers would be protected for their...

Jun 1, 2024 05:45 Gaza: A humanitarian catastrophe More than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of hostilities on October 7, 2023, and more than 90% of those deaths have been civilians. The Israeli military has been heavy handed, even by its own standards, destroying hospitals, churches, mosques, apartment blocks, and literally everything else in its path. On this episode of Th...

May 25, 2024 05:39 Campus protests & The Real News Network with Chris Hedges The United States has been swept by college and university protests and encampments in support of Palestine. The movement began at New York’s prestigious Columbia University and quickly spread all across the country, from major universities to small colleges. On this episode of Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks wit...

May 18, 2024 13:39 The role of the CIA in international conflict International affairs are at the top of the news all around the world. With hot conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Sahel, and would-be confrontations in the Taiwan Strait, the Red Sea, and elsewhere, there is a lot of reporting about various visits of the US secretaries of state and defense and of sensitive negotiations with this co...

May 11, 2024 10:27 Migration & immigration controls at the US border On this episode of the Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks with David Bacon, a photojournalist, fine art photographer, author, union organizer and activist, about the American Dream. Most importantly, they’ll discuss whether or not the American Dream is still available to immigrants, as the border crisis has those in charge...

May 4, 2024 09:30 Epstein’s black book Many questions remain unanswered since the death of Jeffrey Epstein. What was the actual source of his money? Was he an agent working for a foreign intelligence service? Who was it that ordered that Epstein be given a sweetheart deal after his first arrest? Why was he being protected and by whom? And perhaps most importantly, why is it, nearly five years afte...

May 1, 2024 05:49 A broken whistle: Conversation with a CIA whistleblower Pedro Orta is a highly-decorated former CIA officer. In 18 years in the agency, he won eight Exceptional Performance awards for his work in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, and in the US Office of the Inspector General, working, ironically, on whistleblower issues. On this episode of The Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks...

Apr 27, 2024 06:25 A world on fire: Aaron Bushnell On February 25, 2024, a young active duty airman by the name of Aaron Bushnell went to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, declared that as a member of the US Air Force he could not be party to a genocide against the Palestinian people, doused himself with kerosene, and set himself on fire. He shouted “Free Palestine” five times until finally colla...

Apr 24, 2024 08:08 The march towards nuclear war Tensions between Russia and the US have risen as the relationship between the two superpowers has deteriorated to levels not seen since the Cold War. On this episode of The Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks with peace activist, former State Department official, and Marine Corps veteran Matthew Hoh about the world’s march towards nuclear war. Plus...

Apr 20, 2024 05:48 The strange death of the American chestnut Disease struck the American chestnut population in the early 20th century and now the once famed tree is all but extinct in North America. But scientists say they have come up with a plan to revive the chestnut tree through genetic engineering. To some that might sound like a great idea. But is it? It’s never been done before. And we ha...

Apr 17, 2024 09:41 Will the US Justice Department offer Julian Assange a deal? WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange has been held in London’s notorious maximum-security Belmarsh Prison for almost five years. Before that, he was in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. A few years ago, the CIA made plans to kill or kidnap Assange in broad daylight in the streets of London, if the US...

Apr 13, 2024 05:36 Racial discrimination in the US Marshals Matthew Fogg is one of those rare individuals who is utterly relentless. But that relentlessness comes with incredible patience. When he realized he had been a victim of racial discrimination within the federal government, he filed a lawsuit. On this episode of The Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks with Matthew Fogg about his 30-year f...

Apr 10, 2024 06:09 Informants vs whistleblowers What is the difference between an informant and a whistleblower? Does motive matter? On this episode of The Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks with legal and media analyst Lionel about how Charles Littlejohn became something of a controversial figure in whistleblower circles, and the ugly current political atmosphere in Washington.

Apr 6, 2024 09:44 Boeing takes a nosedive Boeing has been in the news a lot lately, and none of it has been good. We’re not talking just about one of the company’s 737-Max jets crashing and killing everybody on board – there are other issues. In one case, part of the fuselage broke off a plane in mid-flight, creating a gaping hole in the side that nearly sucked out a 17-year-old passenger. In anot...

Apr 3, 2024 06:53 Israel’s attacks on Gaza & UNWRA Much of the world is focused on the war in Gaza and the atrocities that are happening there. The United Nations said in mid-March that more children had been killed in Gaza in the first four months of the conflict than in all other conflicts around the world in the last four years. On this episode of the Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks wi...

Mar 30, 2024 05:57 Emmanuel Lewis Emmanuel Lewis brought a class action lawsuit against the Dallas County Sheriff, alleging that he allowed conditions in the county jail which promoted the spread of Covid-19 and put officers at extreme risk. He joins John Kiriakou on this episode of The Whistleblowers to discuss how he blew the whistle on the police department’s handling of incarceration facilitie...

Mar 23, 2024 15:49 The Ukrainian whistleblower Rudy Giuliani reaches out to a Ukrainian diplomat who has information about how his country tried to influence an American election and had in-depth knowledge of Hunter Biden’s business dealing with Ukraine while his father, Joe Biden, was Vice President. The informant eventually found himself sanctioned by the US Treasury Department, had his US visa...

Mar 16, 2024 05:30 Iztok Plevnik: Where did the money go? Iztok Plevnik led counterterrorism teams to retrieve evidence and to capture people around the world under indictment in the ICC. In 2017, his team found stash houses with pallets of American currency – notably, one with $6 billion and another with $10 billion in $100 bills. When Iztok tried to bring the money back to the US, the American E...

Mar 9, 2024 08:42 The truth behind the 9/11 hijackers Who funded the 9/11 hijackers? How did they go through the United States without being detected by the FBI? Were any of them actually recruited by the CIA? On this episode of the Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou gets to the bottom of these questions and more with investigative journalist, Kit Klarenberg, whose research with Greyzone UK he has unco...

Mar 2, 2024 09:53 Assange awaits his fate Millions of people around the world last week watched developments unfold in the case of Wikileaks cofounder Julian Assange. The UK’s High Court heard arguments on February 20 and 21 as to whether Assange should be extradited to the United States to face 17 felony counts of espionage and one count of misuse of a computer, all related to revelations that ca...

Feb 24, 2024 05:49 Remembering John Pilger Every generation has a journalist to whom most people can point as being transformative in world events. On this episode of the Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks with friends of the late John Pilger. He was an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. Pilger became a household name in the 1970s when he secretly entered Cambodia...

Feb 17, 2024 05:37 Triggering a whistleblower On this episode of the Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks with whistleblower and former Swiss banker Pascal Najadi. They discuss what triggered his whistleblowing and his many outlets as a whistleblower including Twitter, which continually got him banned before Elon Musk. Plus, they talk about some of his detractors.

Feb 10, 2024 09:20 Julian Assange & bugging Ecuador’s embassy Ecuadorian authorities were allegedly working with the CIA to download all of the information on every cell phone from every visitor to Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. This included American citizens’ devices, too. And now they’re arguing in court that their constitutional rights were violated. And could Julian Assange...

Feb 3, 2024 05:50 Revealing Australian war crimes David McBride is a former British Army officer and a lawyer with the Australian Special Forces who blew the whistle on war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. It would be great if these stories always had happy endings. Unfortunately, they don’t. On this week’s episode of Whistleblowers, John Kiriakou speaks with David McBride a...