Ex-CIA agent warns 'probably a dozen different countries' monitoring Trump's calls

Former CIA intelligence officer John Kiriakou is perhaps most known for blowing the whistle on the Bush-era torture programs in a 2007 ABC News interview.

But in a recent conversation with Zeteo's Mehdi Hasan, Kiriakou walked through a number of discrepancies in his stories about the Bush torture program and explained his allegations around the pardon conversation he was allegedly offered by Rudy Giuliani. He also mentioned that Trump is being monitored by a dozen or so different countries on his cell phone.

Hasn asked Kiriakou about his work for Russia's state-owned media service Sputnik and Kiriakou explained that it wasn't that he was working as some kind of Russian propagandist so much as the CIA "ruined" him enough that he couldn't find work.

"I did 23 months in a federal prison. I paid my so-called debt to society. But then I'm never supposed to work again as long as I live?"

"So it was a financial thing?" Hasan asked.

"Oh, absolutely," Kiriakou said.

"But isn't that even worse?" asked Hasan. "Because that suggests that you'd do anything for anyone who paid you."

Kiriakou said that he told the Russians the only way he would take the post is if he was allowed to criticize anyone he wanted, including Vladimir Putin. They agreed to it.

The conversation then turned to President Donald Trump and his relationship with Russia. Kiriakou called it "strange" the way that Trump is so willing to attack anyone with the exception of Putin.

On Trump's frequent use of his personal cell phone, Hasan noted that random reporters will speak with him when they call his phone and anyone who wants to chat with him can easily access him. Hasan cited one report that said Trump will answer foreign numbers, thinking that it could be a foreign leader that he might want to talk to. Hasan asked whether this makes him the "most compromised president of our lifetime."

Kiriakou said, "It's gotta be a dozen different countries listening to these calls. Absolutely, yes! I know what we used to do at the CIA."

Hasan said he couldn't understand why it wasn't a bigger deal than Hillary Clinton's email scandal.

"Yeah, it's not good," said Kiriakou.

"There are things that you know that you still can't say," Hasan said after a discussion about the torture program. "How bad are they?"

"They're pretty ugly," Kiriakou said.

Hasan asked about a comment that Kiriakou made on the "Diary of a CEO" podcast, saying that he is the most anti-CIA former CIA person there is. He argued that the CIA is "out of control."

"It's been out of control since its first covert action program," said Kiriakou. "Which was to steal the Italian election of 1949 until the Church Committee Hearings. Between 1975 and about 1982, there was real oversight. Something that Americans could be proud of."

Hasan laughed, noting it was the era of the Jimmy Carter presidency, but Kiriakou cited former U.S. Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Rep. Otis G. Pike (D-N.Y.), who "were serious about reforming the CIA."

He said that it "all went out the window with Iran-Contra," the Ronald Reagan administration scandal that offered an arms deal for hostages in Iran despite the country being designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984. The profits from the arms sales were then sent to fund the militants in Nicaragua fighting against the communist Sandinistas. He added to it the so-called "War on Terror" is another example of low-oversight CIA actions.

Kiriakou was the only one who ever went to prison related to the torture scandal, he explained. He never tortured anyone; he only blew the whistle.

Kiriakou closed by confessing that he "was probably soft on Trump" because he wanted a pardon. He said that the meeting he had with Giuliani and several of his staff resulted in a conversation about sports before he abruptly went to the men's room. A Giuliani staffer then allegedly told Kiriakou never to mention the pardons to Giuliani and only to talk to his staff about it. They allegedly quoted him $2 million for a pardon. Kiriakou said he laughed.

The New York Times later called Giuliani and asked about it, and he denied ever meeting Kiriakou. However, he'd taken a photo with Kiriakou at the meeting.

They also debated the idea that Trump is being manipulated by foreign governments that have information about him. Kiriakou said that he doesn't buy it. "I think he is stubborn enough and arrogant enough that if they were to threaten him with holding something over his head, he would lash out at them."