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  • Comment: Subject is probably notable, but the sources are mainly profiles by organizations he worked for and coverage of the incidents he was involved in. Somepinkdude (talk) 19:40, 4 January 2026 (UTC)


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.[1][2][3] He served as station chief in Serbia following the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević in 2000.[4] Since retirement, Sipher has worked as a foreign policy commentator and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.[5]

Education

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Sipher attended Hobart and William Smith college, earned a master's in international affairs from Columbia University, and "attended a variety of executive level courses at Harvard University, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Aspen Institute and the Intelligence Community’s Executive Leadership program".[6]

CIA career

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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.[5] He was a lead instructor at the CIA's clandestine training school and a lecturer at its leadership development program.[5] He received the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal.[1]

Following the October 2000 overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, Sipher became station chief in Serbia. In a 2020 interview with Foreign Affairs, Sipher stated that the CIA funneled "certainly millions of dollars" into the anti-Milošević campaign, meeting with opposition aides outside Serbia's borders and providing cash.[4]

Post-CIA career

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After retiring in 2014, Sipher is active as a speaker, author, and consultant. He co-founded Spycraft Entertainment, a firm providing content to the entertainment industry.[5] He serves as a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project.[5] He has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Politico, Foreign Affairs, and Lawfare, and has appeared on PBS NewsHour, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, and BBC.[5]

He is also the host of Mission Implausible, a politics podcast from iHeart Podcasts,[7] where he and fellow CIA veteran Jerry O'Shea investigate "conspiracy theories past and present".[8] He has shared his views and expertise about "What Hollywood gets right — and wrong — about the CIA."[9]

Hunter Biden laptop letter

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Main article: 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."[10] The letter stated that the signatories did not know if the emails were genuine and did not have evidence of Russian involvement.[10]

Sipher stated that the letter's signatories "never claimed that material about Hunter Biden was made up" but rather that "the story fit a narrative being pushed by people with ties to Russian intelligence."[10]

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order revoking the security clearances of all surviving signatories of the letter.[11]

Views on Trump and national security

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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:[12]

I think it is entirely plausible that Mr. Trump is somehow compromised by his personal and financial dealings with Russia and Russians, but I do not think he is an 'agent' in the sense that intelligence professionals use the term. Let me explain. ...

Based on the U.S. definition of an agent, it is unlikely that President Trump is a recruited and controlled source of the Russian intelligence services. To a professional he is a nightmare. Yes, he is a cauldron of potentially exploitable vulnerabilities. ...

He clearly crossed a line and can be objectively labeled an agent of a foreign power in the standard definition of the word. From the Russian perspective, it is a win-win even if the relationship doesn't meet the cloak-and-dagger definition of a wholly clandestine espionage agent.

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:[13]

And we've never had a president who doesn't seem to take his job seriously. He doesn't seem to take the notion of national security and foreign policy seriously. He takes himself very, very seriously. And so this is probably a really hard nut to crack for the intelligence community to figure out how to best serve him.

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".[14]

Sipher has written about and analyzed the Steele dossier:[15]

Sipher concludes that the dossier's information on campaign collusion is generally credible when measured against standard Russian intelligence practices, events subsequent to Steele's reporting, and information that has become available in the nine months since Steele's final report. The dossier, in Sipher's view, is not without fault, including factual inaccuracies. Those errors, however, do not detract from an overarching framework that has proven to be ever more reliable as new revelations about potential Trump campaign collusion with the Kremlin and its affiliates has come to light in the nine months since Steele submitted his final report.[16]

Sipher wrote that "Many of my former CIA colleagues have taken the [dossier] reports seriously since they were first published."[17]

References

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  1. ^ a b "CIA Veteran John Sipher On The Trump-Putin Meeting". NPR. July 17, 2018. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  2. ^ "Profile: John Sipher". Just Security. July 17, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2025.
  3. ^ "Establishment of the Senior Intelligence Service" (PDF). September 12, 2013. Retrieved August 20, 2025.
  4. ^ a b Shimer, David (June 21, 2020). "When the CIA Interferes in Foreign Elections". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "John Sipher". Atlantic Council. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  6. ^ "Lives of Consequence: John R. Sipher '83, P'19, Retired, Central Intelligence Agency". Hobart and William Smith Colleges. October 3, 2023. Retrieved January 3, 2026.
  7. ^ Viars, Hailey Rose (January 24, 2025). "Inside the Intelligence World: Former CIA officer breaks down spies and conspiracies in Global Briefing Series". Oklahoma State University. Retrieved January 3, 2026.
  8. ^ "Mission Implausible". Podnews. January 2, 2026. Retrieved January 3, 2026.
  9. ^ Morell, Michael; Smolinski, Paulina (November 30, 2022). ""Intelligence Matters": What Hollywood gets right — and wrong — about the CIA". CBS News. Retrieved January 3, 2026.
  10. ^ a b c Dilanian, Ken (February 24, 2024). "Former U.S. spies warned in 2020 that the Hunter Biden scandal had Russian fingerprints. They feel vindicated now". NBC News. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  11. ^ "Trump revokes security clearances of former officials who signed Hunter Biden laptop letter with executive action". CNN. January 21, 2025. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
  12. ^ Sipher, John (April 16, 2019). "Is Trump a Russian Agent?: Explaining Terms of Art and Examining the Facts". Just Security. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
  13. ^ "CIA Veteran John Sipher On The Trump-Putin Meeting". NPR. July 17, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2026.
  14. ^ Otis, Cindy; Price, Ned; Sipher, John (November 13, 2017). "Don't Muzzle Former C.I.A. Officers". The New York Times. Retrieved January 3, 2026.
  15. ^ Sipher, John (September 6, 2017). "What exactly does the Steele dirty Russian dossier on Trump contain?". Newsweek. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  16. ^ Sipher, John (September 6, 2017). "A Second Look at the Steele Dossier". Just Security. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  17. ^ Sipher, John (September 11, 2017). "A lot of the Steele dossier has since been corroborated". Slate. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
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Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:People of the Central Intelligence Agency Category:American intelligence analysts Category:Hobart and William Smith Colleges alumni Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Atlantic Council