Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou Claims Israeli Operatives Tried to Spy on U.S. Intelligence Facilities

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By: Arthur Popowitz

In an explosive new interview, former CIA officer John Kiriakou has alleged that Israeli intelligence operatives repeatedly attempted to plant surveillance devices in U.S. intelligence facilities and sought to recruit American officers — claims that, if true, expose a deeply sensitive undercurrent in the decades-long relationship between Washington and Jerusalem.

Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, one of the most widely followed podcasts in the world, Kiriakou — who served in the CIA’s Middle East Division and counterterrorism branch during the 1990s and early 2000s — described what he called a “pattern of aggressive intelligence-gathering tactics” by visiting officers from Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s premier security agencies.

As VIN News reported on Sunday, Kiriakou’s allegations are particularly striking given his long-standing insider status in the U.S. intelligence community and his prior notoriety as a whistleblower who exposed elements of the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation program. His comments have reignited debate over the often-opaque boundaries that define cooperation — and competition — between two of the world’s closest intelligence partners.

According to the information provided in the VIN News report, Kiriakou said that during the early years of his CIA career, he was routinely tasked with briefing delegations from Mossad and Shin Bet. These exchanges, part of what is normally a cooperative information-sharing framework between allied services, quickly became a source of alarm.

He alleged that Israeli visitors were repeatedly caught attempting to smuggle listening devices into CIA buildings under the guise of diplomatic gifts. “The agency finally banned Israeli visits to headquarters after it happened one too many times,” he said. “They’d show up with ‘presents’ — boxes packed with devices and batteries.”

Kiriakou’s recollection, as described in the VIN News report, paints a picture of distrust that lingered even amid formal alliances. The CIA, he said, viewed the Israeli intelligence services as “friend-adversaries” — partners in counterterrorism, but also relentless collectors of American secrets.

The agency, according to Kiriakou, quietly circulated internal guidance advising officers to treat Israeli counterparts with caution, even during official liaison briefings.

Perhaps the most startling part of Kiriakou’s account, reported in detail by VIN News, involves what he described as a recruitment attempt by an Israeli officer during a routine meeting.

“The guy goes like this… ‘Spell your name,’” Kiriakou told Rogan. “So I spell it. He writes it down, and he’s looking at me over his glasses, and he goes, ‘You are Jewish?’ And I said, ‘I am not recruitable. Don’t even think about trying to recruit me.’”

Kiriakou said his supervisors later confirmed that he was not alone. “They told me, ‘They’ve done that to every single one of us. It’s like they can’t help themselves,’” he recalled.

While the VIN News report noted that intelligence professionals often face recruitment feelers from both adversarial and friendly services, Kiriakou’s description underscores the delicate balance of trust and suspicion that pervades even the CIA’s closest bilateral relationships.

Kiriakou, now 60, joined the CIA in 1990 and served for over a decade, including postings in the Middle East and South Asia, before leaving the agency in 2004. He rose to prominence — and controversy — in 2007, when he became the first U.S. official to publicly confirm the existence of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program.

As the VIN News report recounted, his disclosures, while heralded by some as acts of conscience, ultimately led to his conviction under the Espionage Act in 2013 for revealing the identity of a covert officer. Kiriakou served 30 months in federal prison, emerging as both a critic of American secrecy and a cautionary figure within the intelligence world.

In the years since, he has remained an outspoken commentator on national security, often framing his experiences as evidence of what he sees as systemic overreach and moral decay within the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy. His latest claims about Israeli operations fit within that narrative — suggesting not only a history of overzealous allies but also an intelligence culture prone to denial and selective accountability.

While the VIN News report emphasized that Kiriakou’s allegations have not been independently verified, they resonate uncomfortably with prior cases in which Israeli intelligence activities have crossed into U.S. territory.

The Jonathan Pollard affair remains the most infamous example. Pollard, a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, was convicted in 1987 of passing classified documents to Israel. The incident caused a deep rupture in U.S.–Israeli relations that took decades to mend.

Since then, both countries have officially pledged to abstain from spying on one another. Yet, as the VIN News report noted, occasional flare-ups and suspicions have persisted — from the 2019 reports that miniature cellphone surveillance devices were discovered near the White House, allegedly planted by Israeli agents, to ongoing frictions over technology sharing and cyber intelligence.

Kiriakou’s remarks appear to add to that legacy, portraying a culture of relentless espionage even among allies.

In addition to the alleged surveillance efforts, Kiriakou recounted early encounters with what he described as pro-Israel lobbying efforts directed at promising young analysts and diplomats.

He told Rogan that shortly after joining the CIA, he was approached with offers of all-expenses-paid trips to Israel, presented as “educational tours.” Kiriakou said he declined, suspecting the invitations were attempts to curry favor or subtly align American officials with Israeli perspectives.

Yet, he acknowledged the remarkable success of Israel’s influence networks, particularly in Washington. “Much bigger,” he said, “and they have such a tiny population — nine million people. It’s pretty gangster. Kudos to them. It’s like Chicago taking over the world.”

As the VIN News report observed, Kiriakou’s tone vacillated between criticism and begrudging admiration — a reflection of his complex view of Israeli intelligence as both audacious and highly effective.

Israel and the United States maintain one of the most intricate intelligence-sharing relationships in the world, encompassing joint counterterrorism operations, cyber defense, and regional surveillance. Yet, beneath the veneer of strategic alliance lies an undercurrent of mutual wariness — a point underscored in the VIN News analysis of Kiriakou’s claims.

U.S. agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI, have long regarded foreign liaison relationships as transactional, guided by the principle of “trust, but verify.” Even among allies, the race for information supremacy is constant.

Kiriakou’s allegations, however sensational, reflect a truth many intelligence professionals privately acknowledge: that espionage rarely obeys the boundaries of friendship. “They spy on us, and we spy on them,” one retired CIA officer told VIN News. “It’s an unspoken rule of the game.”

Neither the CIA nor the Israeli Embassy in Washington has commented publicly on Kiriakou’s remarks. Within the intelligence community, reaction has been muted — perhaps unsurprisingly, given Kiriakou’s fraught history with the agency and his reputation as both insider and pariah.

Still, his interview has reignited online discussion about the complex moral geometry of intelligence alliances. In a media landscape where whistleblowers, dissidents, and former operatives now wield the megaphone once reserved for governments, Kiriakou’s claims carry symbolic weight, even if they lack documentary proof.

As the VIN News report observed, the allegations — true or not — expose the uneasy tension between cooperation and competition that has always defined the U.S.–Israel intelligence relationship.

For all their shared interests and overlapping enemies, the world’s most formidable spy agencies remain, at their core, rivals — locked in a perpetual dance of trust and deception, even among friends.