“Still, overall Jeffrey’s transition is a good thing, not just for him, but for the country. That’s because Jeffrey Sterling will no longer be silenced. He’ll have the ability, if he so desires, to speak his mind. The District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia can no longer silence him. The Bureau of Prisons can no longer silence him. Jeffrey Sterling has a story to tell. And I can’t wait to hear it.”

Febryary 14 2018 — Jeffrey Sterling is now home for the rest of his sentence. Details will follow. The following Letter was written by former CIA officer Jon Kiriakou a few weeks ago. However, it was not published because we did not want to put Jeffrey Sterling’s release in jeopardy. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today

On Christmas eve, I told you that former CIA Jeffrey Sterling could be released from jail early this year. On January 16 2018, Jeffrey Sterling was released from prison to a halfway house, ahead of the original end date of his 3.5 year prison sentence on June 14, 2018.

Today (February 14 2018), I am happy to report that Jeffrey Sterling is home. His release from the halfway house is a good news but it is by no means the end of his story. Quite the contrary. I believe that his story has just begun.

Op-Ed by Former CIA Officer John Kiriakou

CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling will be released from a federal prison on Tuesday, January 16, barring any unforeseen Bureau of Prisons effort to further humiliate him by throwing a wrench into things. Jeffrey’s wife, Holly Sterling, will pick him up at the Federal Correctional Institution at Englewood, Colorado, they will fly to St. Louis, MO, and Jeffrey will report to a halfway house there. He could be there for as little as a few hours or as long as six months. Again, he’s at the mercy of the Bureau of Prisons.

I’ve been in regular touch with Holly over the past three years. It’s going to be a happy day in her household. But I’ve also told her to beware. The system is stacked against Jeffrey, and while he’ll be free next week, it won’t necessarily be in the sense that the rest of us might think. Here’s what he’s up against.

Jeffrey will have a certain amount of time to get from the prison to the halfway house. It’ll likely be something like eight hours. If he’s late (even if it’s because of a weather delay for the plane he’s on) and he doesn’t call both the prison and the halfway house in advance, his absence will be considered an “escape.” He would be returned to prison and up to two years could be added to his sentence.

Once Jeffrey gets to the halfway house, he will have to meet with a myriad of people—a case manager, a social worker, a drug counselor, and others. Much of what he will be ordered to do will be like closing the barn door after the animals get out. He will have to take more than a dozen mandatory classes including non-sequiturs like “Preventing Prison Rape,” “Suicide Prevention,” How to Balance a Checkbook,” “How to Write a Resume,” and “How to Get Through a Job Interview.” Jeffrey is an attorney and a decorated fraud investigator. He doesn’t need most or any of these classes. But if he doesn’t take them—and complete them to the satisfaction of the Bureau of Prisons—he’ll be “violated” and sent back to prison.

Jeffrey doesn’t need handholding, and because halfway houses are for profit institutions, the powers that be have an incentive to send him home as soon as possible. He will have to pay “rent” on his bed at the halfway house—25 percent of his gross pay—for the entire duration of his early release, six months. The halfway house makes a profit by making as many as a dozen men pay that rent on the same bed. But to be sent home, he will have to show that he at least has the ability to find work.

In addition, Jeffrey will have to keep a log of every job he applies for and he’ll have to submit that log weekly to his case manager, with whom he’ll meet at least weekly, and perhaps as much as three times a week. He’ll also be drug tested weekly, whether or not he has any history of drug use. (He doesn’t.) In fact, he’ll have to make a special trip in to the halfway house just to undergo the drug testing. It’s a colossal waste of time and money.

Jeffrey will be allowed to leave his house only to go to job interviews, work, a doctor’s appointment, or church. He’ll also be allowed to leave the house for up to nine hours on Saturday and four hours on Sunday for “family refamiliarization.” That means he’ll be allowed to go to a movie or to a restaurant with Holly. All the while, the halfway house will call to ask where he is, they’ll call in the morning, again in the evening, and they’ll drop by the house to make sure he hasn’t “absconded.”

To tell you the truth, I was only in a halfway house for five hours, before the next 88 days were converted to “home confinement.” I was beyond thrilled to be with my wife and children. But that halfway house and home confinement time was far more stressful than prison was. Halfway house authorities can come up with any reason under the sun to violate you and send you back to prison. Don’t like your politics? It’s a violation. Don’t like your attitude? A violation. Not working hard enough to find a job? A violation. The threat of being sent back to prison is real. And it’s onerous.

The halfway house and the Bureau of Prisons even have veto authority over what job Jeffrey gets. I was offered a job as an associate fellow at a progressive think tank in Washington. The Bureau of Prisons denied me permission to take that job, saying that it would give me “a platform to criticize the Bureau and to comment on prison reform issues.” They couldn’t stand the idea. Jeffrey will go through the same nonsense.

Even when that’s done, and it’ll be formally done for Jeffrey on June 14, 2018, he’ll still have three years of probation, or what’s called “supervised release” in the federal system. That brings with it a whole new set of rules. And then it’s the U.S. Marshals who can violate you at the drop of a hat. Jeffrey will have to get permission from his federal probation officer every time he wants to leave the St. Louis environs. He has to submit a monthly financial report, showing every transaction he’s made over the previous month. His home is subject to search. And believe me, it’ll be searched. It’s three more years of control and humiliation.

Still, overall Jeffrey’s transition is a good thing, not just for him, but for the country. That’s because Jeffrey Sterling will no longer be silenced. He’ll have the ability, if he so desires, to speak his mind. The District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia can no longer silence him. The Bureau of Prisons can no longer silence him. Jeffrey Sterling has a story to tell. And I can’t wait to hear it.