Senior US Intelligence Official Died by Suicide in June

US INTEL SILENT ON DEATH OF ONE OF IT’S OWN-(Editor’s Note: Mr. Schinella was the husband of CityWatch Washington DC bureau chief and DC Dispatch columnist, Sara Corcoran.)

One of the nation’s highest-ranking intelligence officials died by suicide at his home in the Washington, D.C., area in June, but the U.S. intelligence community has remained publicly silent about the incident even as the Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a secret investigation of his death.

Anthony Schinella, 52, the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues, shot himself on June 14 in the front yard of his Arlington home. A Virginia medical examiner’s report lists Schinella’s cause of death as suicide from a gunshot wound to the head. His wife, who had just married him weeks earlier, told The Intercept that she was in her car in the driveway, trying to get away from Schinella when she witnessed his suicide. At the time of his suicide, Schinella was weeks away from retirement.

Soon after his death, an FBI liaison to the CIA entered Schinella’s house and removed his passports, his secure phone, and searched through his belongings, according to his wife, Sara Corcoran, a Washington journalist. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

As NIO for Military Issues, Schinella was the highest-ranking military affairs analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, and was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing the intelligence community’s most important analytical reports that go to the president and other top policymakers. (Read the rest.)  

-cw