John Sipher

John Sipher is a former American intelligence officer who served 28 years in the Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service, retiring in 2014 as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service. He is from Cortland, New York. and as station chief in Moscow.

Education

Sipher attended Hobart and William Smith college, where he was captain of the Hobart lacrosse team during four consecutive national championship seasons.

CIA career

Sipher joined the CIA in 1986 and served multiple overseas tours as chief of station and deputy chief of station in Europe, Asia, and high-threat environments. where he and fellow CIA veteran Jerry O'Shea investigate "conspiracy theories past and present". He has shared his views and expertise about "What Hollywood gets right — and wrong — about the CIA."

Commenting on the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in August 2020, Sipher stated: "Whether or not Putin personally ordered the poisoning, he is behind any and all efforts to maintain control through intimidation and murder."

Hunter Biden laptop letter

In October 2020, Sipher was among 51 former intelligence officials who signed a public letter stating that emails from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, reported by the New York Post, had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." The letter stated that the signatories did not know if the emails were genuine and did not have evidence of Russian involvement.

Views on Trump and national security

Sipher has written about and analyzed the Steele dossier. In September 2017, Just Security referenced Sipher:

Sipher wrote that "Many of my former CIA colleagues have taken the [dossier] reports seriously since they were first published."

Sipher was one of three former CIA officers who objected to CIA Director Mike Pompeo's comments enjoining former agency officers to remain quiet after Trump's remarks at Helsinki. They also mentioned threats "from within": "We believe we have a responsibility to call out when our leadership is not doing enough to keep America safe." They also said they would speak "out against threats to national security even if they come from within".

After Trump's comments at the 2018 Helsinki Summit, Sipher spoke about Trump's difficult relationship with the U.S. intelligence community, and how his comments "probably set it back quite a bit". When asked about the intelligence community's feeling that Trump didn't have its back, he replied:

Sipher considers Trump a Russian agent in a limited sense. In an article that describes the terms of art used by intelligence professionals, he starts by saying Trump is not an "agent" in the traditional sense, and later says he is "an agent of a foreign power". He explains:

In December 2019, Sipher commented on phone records released by the House Intelligence Committee during the Trump impeachment inquiry, stating that Trump and Giuliani had "given the Russians ammunition they can use in an overt fashion, a covert fashion or in the twisting of information." Regarding Russian intelligence capabilities, he said: "I guarantee the Russians have the actual information".