John A. Rizzo
John Anthony Rizzo (October 6, 1947 – August 6, 2021) was an American attorney who worked as a lawyer in the Central Intelligence Agency for 34 years. He was the deputy counsel or acting general counsel of the CIA for the first nine years of the War on Terror, during which the CIA held dozens of detainees in black site prisons around the globe.
John A. Rizzo | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Anthony Rizzo October 6, 1947 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | August 6, 2021 (aged 73) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | Brown University (BA) George Washington University (JD) |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Known for | Acting General Counsel of the CIA |
| Spouses | Priscilla Walton Layton
(divorced)Sharon Knight
(m. 1993; died 2021) |
During the George W. Bush administration, the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice approved various forms of torture (referred to as "enhanced interrogation techniques") in memos to Rizzo for use by CIA interrogators at the black sites. Rizzo signed off on all CIA-directed drone strikes from September 2001 until October 2009.
He was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and Senior Counsel at the Steptoe & Johnson law firm.