The CIA Spy Who Became a Russian Propagandist

“Oh, heavens no,” says John Kiriakou, host of Sputnik Radio’s Loud and Clear. I’ve just asked him whether he believes Russian-sponsored news outlets, like the one he works for, are trying to destabilize American democracy. “No, that’s ridiculous,” he says. 

Back in 2013, when Kiriakou’s life was spinning out of control, a New Yorker profile described him as someone with “the exuberance of a Labrador retriever.” Five years later—after two spent in prison—the description still stands.

RT, Sputnik and Russia’s New Theory of War

One morning in January 2016, Martin Steltner showed up at his office in the state courthouse building in western Berlin. Steltner, who has served for more than a dozen years as the spokesman for the Berlin state prosecutor, resembles a detective out of classic crime fiction: crisp suit, wavy gray hair and a gallows humor that comes with having seen it all. There was the 2009 case of the therapist who mistakenly killed two patients in an Ecstasy-infused session gone wrong. The Great Poker Heist of 2010, in which masked men stormed a celebrity-studded poker tournament with machetes and made off with a quarter-million dollars. The 2012 episode involving the Canadian porn star who killed and ate his boyfriend and then sent the leftovers home in the mail. Steltner embraced the oddball aspect of his job; he kept a picture of Elvis Presley on the wall of his office.

Former Breitbart News reporter joins Russian propaganda news agency Sputnik

Former Breitbart News investigative reporter Lee Stranahan is launching a radio show for Sputnik, a news organization owned and operated by the Russian government, the Atlantic reports.

“I’m on the Russian payroll now, when you work at Sputnik you’re being paid by the Russians,” Stranahan told the Atlantic’s Rosie Gray. “That’s what it is. I don’t have any qualms about it. Nothing about it really affects my position on stuff that I’ve had for years now.”