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John continues to have a hard time comprehending the point, which is that he and other CIA/intelligence colleagues have been ascribed quasi-journalistic credibility since 2016. I'm against such officials having an outsized role in shaping public opinion
No one's arguing that John and his ilk should be legally prohibited from speaking. I'm arguing that they should not have been granted such an outsized, quasi-journalistic role in framing news events. History shows that's highly "problematic," to put it extremely charitably
But then again, elite American media has lost all sense of history since 2016 -- because we're allegedly in a period that's Not Normal -- so they've engaged in all kinds of conduct, such as amplifying and *hiring* intelligence officials, that they would've shunned in years past
"I know a damn lot more than you do about intelligence and Russian subversion," Sipher claims. It's on that basis that he's assumed this quasi-journalistic authority, constantly cited as an Expert in the media and empowered to shape public perceptions of news events
Sipher leveraged this claimed authority to argue in the NYT that Trump did in fact "collude" with Russia, citing the 2016 Trump Tower meeting as evidence for this. Mueller has dispelled any notion that the meeting constituted "collusion." So sorry John, I reject your authority 
