Therefore, most if not all 70th Wing personnel must obtain the highest-level security clearance, “top secret/sensitive compartmented information.” Bushnell held that clearance, boasting about it to his friends. As a result, he had access to many U.S. national security secrets, working as a cyber defense operations specialist at an NSA base in San Antonio. To obtain TS/SCI, as it’s called in the intelligence business, applicants must undergo an investigation of every aspect of their lives, personal as well as professional. Showstoppers for obtaining TS/SCI include foreign affiliations, criminal activity, mental illness, drug problems, or questionable personal conduct. This begs a key question.

How did Bushnell, who made little secret of his radical left-wing politics, get and maintain such a high-level security clearance?

It seems that his extremism, including an embrace of antifa and anarchism, set in after he joined the Air Force. Indeed, Bushnell’s online rants, embracing hate of Israel and extolling the deaths of fellow U.S. military members, were open in their praise for the radical Left. It seems unlikely that nobody at his squadron in San Antonio was aware of his political views. Neither is this the Air Force’s only security clearance disaster in recent memory.