Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA officer, whistleblower, and graduate of Washington University Law School. After he had filed a discrimination lawsuit against the CIA, Sterling was controversially tried and convicted in 2015 under the 1917 Espionage Act in the Eastern District of Virginia. This same act is now being used to target publisher and journalist Julian Assange. Should the WikiLeaks founder be extradited to the United States, he, too, would face trial in this same district.

A Farsi speaker and clandestine operations officer specializing in Iran, Sterling participated in Operation Merlin, a CIA effort ostensibly aimed at undermining that country’s nuclear program. But when he became convinced that safety protocols were not being followed, Sterling brought his concerns to members of the Senate and House intelligence committees.

While Sterling acted in line with whistleblower procedures, representatives failed to act on his disclosures. Yet when he was dismissed by the CIA, which he says was retribution for a discrimination lawsuit he filed against it, he was accused of passing on details of the botched CIA plan to then–New York Times journalist James Risen. In his book Unwanted Spy: The Persecution of an American Whistleblower, Sterling insists that these charges, carrying a potential one-hundred-year sentence, were themselves part of the retaliation against him.