If you’re going to “resist” President Trump’s criticisms of the intelligence community, don’t do it with a variation of, “ You’ll be sorry.”

To suggest former and current intelligence chiefs are not to be criticized or questioned because they know where the bodies are buried is to concede the president’s claim that the community has grown too unaccountable and overloaded with unethical actors.

This weekend, as news broke that Andrew McCabe had been fired as deputy director of the FBI following the recommendation of the agency’s inspector general, Trump tweeted that it was “a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI – A great day for Democracy.”

He added, “Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”

You’re not going to find a defense here of Trump’s stupid response. His tweet is obviously below the dignity of his office. But what’s far more interesting (to me at least) is how some people with top-level security clearances have reacted to his note of celebration. They have responded not with the criticism it deserves, but with what sounds an awful lot like a veiled threat of extortion.

Former CIA chief and noted perjurer John Brennan responded to the president Saturday with a tweet that read, “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you.”

Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power responded with an ominous-sounding note: “Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan.”

Why is it “not a good idea?” Does Brennan have covert dirt on the president? Will he try to get revenge? Will Brennan prove the president’s entire point about unethical actors in the intelligence community correct?

If the idea here is to push back on the president’s criticisms of the intelligence community, treating its current and former chiefs like volatile, punitive hatchet men is the exact wrong way to go about it.

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson did this in February in an op-ed titled, "Trump has picked a fight with the FBI. He’ll be sorry." Former CIA counterterrorism official and CNN commentator Phil Mudd also said in February that the FBI people "are ticked" and they'll be saying of Trump, “You’ve been around for 13 months. We've been around since 1908. I know how this game is going to be played. We're going to win.”

It’s true the FBI has been around 110 years. It’s also true that, like the CIA, its ethical track record isn’t exactly squeaky clean.

Trump’s Saturday tweet may be petulant, stupid, and inappropriate, but threats to use agency powers against him for revenge, like the ones conveyed by Mudd, Power, and Robinson, don’t exactly prove him wrong.