Who is John Schindler? He’s an alleged degenerate pervert with a long career as an intelligence analyst and a penchant for running his mouth on social media. In Schindler’s world, anyone who disagrees with him is clearly a Russian agent. Anyone who challenges the wisdom of his policy prescriptions just isn’t privy to the same level of intel he has. He is in short, a boob, and a constant reminder that the people staffing America’s intelligence agencies are just as irresponsible and flawed as the rest of us. 

It’s hard to take him seriously. But national security experts and war hawks do, so we should assume he hears credible things. Yesterday, he tweeted about something that should earn him a visit from the Secret Service. As the Daily Caller notes:

John Schindler, a former National Security Agency analyst and current columnist for the New York Observer, said Wednesday that the intelligence community will go “nuclear” against President Donald Trump.

The national security columnist also quoted a senior intelligence official telling him that Trump “will die in jail.” “Now we go nuclear. [Intelligence community] war going to new levels. Just got an [email from] from senior [intelligence community] friend, it began: ‘He will die in jail,’” Schindler tweeted.

The Observer columnist has for months taken a strong stance against Trump. He recently wrote an article called “The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins.”

This sounds to us like Schindler is aware of some sort of coup against the president of the United States. Neocon shills like Bill Kristol and Evan McMullin have echoed similar sentiments. This is very not ok. It suggests that an unelected apparatus of professional bureaucrats is using its authority to force the hand of the elected president of the United States. Writing on the embarrassing, irrelevant McMuffin over at the Resurgent, Mark Giller explains why this is so problematic:

As a guy who has worked in the intelligence community, it should scare the hell out of him that rogue elements within that community–very likely working with former officials from the Obama administration–have been breaking the law to leak information that has the sole purpose of doing political damage to a duly elected president.  Does McMullin really think that it’s in the best interests of the United States to have an unelected Deep State pulling the strings and controlling everything, essentially nullifying the concept of representative government?  How is that in any way principled?  And how is that in any way conservative?

Down this way lays a very dark path.  It means that the White House will have to operate from the assumption that its own intelligence agencies cannot be trusted.  What happens when a critical piece of information comes in, but the president doesn’t know if it’s genuine or just another political trap set by his enemies at the CIA, or the NSA, or the FBI?  Will he act on it in time?  Can he?  The potential for catastrophe in this kind of scenario cannot be overstated. We already live in a dangerous world.  This kind of nonsense will only make it even more dangerous.

These are the same people that said that criticism of President Bush’s policies amounted to treason. Now they’re openly spouting about things that sound like actual treason. 

We hear there are some openings in Guantanamo Bay. Schindler should tread lightly.