If you're a left-leaning member of the National Security Council and you're unhappy with the duly elected president, what do you do?  Why, leak details of classified discussions and pending operations to the media, of course!

In a N.Y. Times article, which itself is based on NSC leaks, leakers try to portray the NSC in chaos, but in the process of attempting to do so, they reveal the scope of their disloyalty.

These are chaotic and anxious days inside the National Security Council, the traditional center of management for a president’s dealings with an uncertain world. Some staff members have turned to encrypted communications to talk with their colleagues, after hearing that Mr. Trump’s top advisers are considering an “insider threat” program that could result in monitoring cellphones and emails for leaks.

Now, why would NSC staffers talking with their colleagues, presumably about affairs of state, feel the need to encrypt their conversations from the man they work for?  I think the implication is clear – that these conversations are about undermining and leaking information to harm the Trump administration.

Nervous staff members recently met late at night at a bar a few blocks from the White House and talked about purging their social media accounts of any suggestion of anti-Trump sentiments.

Why would they need to do that?  Past anti-Trump sentiments are not against the law.  But leaking classified information is.  I think these leakers are trying to keep a lower profile to avoid being caught.

Last week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was exploring whether the Navy could intercept and board an Iranian ship to look for contraband weapons possibly headed to Houthi fighters in Yemen.

White House officials said that [the operation was cancelled]... because news of the impending operation leaked, a threat to security that has helped fuel the move for the insider threat program.

This is leakers in action.  But instead of writing an article about their illegality, this is only mentioned in passing, as part of the Times' main interest in portraying the NSC as being in chaos.  What amazes me is how the Times doesn't seem to think revealing bureaucrats leaking classified information is even a problem; the paper is are so disconnected from reality that its writers think anything, including disregarding national security laws, is justified, all in the pursuit of Trump.

[Some NSC staffers have left but] Many of those who remain, who see themselves as apolitical civil servants, have been disturbed by displays of overt partisanship. At an all-hands meeting about two weeks into the new administration, Ms. McFarland told the group it needed to “make America great again,” numerous staff members who were there said. New Trump appointees are carrying coffee mugs with that Trump campaign slogan into meetings with foreign counterparts, one staff member said.

Why is it partisan to have a mug featuring the slogan of the president...in his own White House?  When Obama was president, do you think staff avoided pro-Obama slogans?  I'm sure they didn't.  These people are just appalled to be confronted with direct evidence that Trump is their president.  It shows that they don't have either the temperament or the loyalty to do their jobs.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.