Tennessee couple helps those with Type 2 diabetes reverse their condition Coats out as intel czar
Texas congressman, Mueller critic, picked for position
WASHINGTON — Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, will leave his job next month, President Trump announced Sunday, after a turbulent two years in which Coats and the president were often at odds over Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump announced Coats’ departure as Aug. 15 in a tweet that thanked Coats for his service. He said that he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-texas, to the post and that he will name an acting official in the coming days.
Coats often appeared out of step with Trump and disclosed to prosecutors how he was urged by the president to publicly deny any link between Russia and the Trump campaign. The frayed relationship reflected broader divisions between the president and the government’s intelligence agencies.
In a letter of resignation released Sunday night, Coats said that serving as the nation’s top intelligence official has been a “distinct privilege” but that it was time for him to “move on” to the next chapter of his life. He cited his work to strengthen the intelligence community’s effort to prevent harm to the U.S. from adversaries and reform the security clearance process.
A former Republican senator
When Clark County planned to buy the historic Moulin Rouge site in late 2017 to build a family services office, community members urged officials to backtrack, roiled by the prospect of a government building on the property that was once home to Las Vegas’ first desegregated casino and hotel.
Clark County listened, ending its pursuit of a $6.2 million purchase despite presenting a winning bid, conceding to the will of those who only see one possibility for the land: A Moulin Rouge revival.
Now there is an agreement in place for
MOULIN ROUGE
from Indiana, Coats was appointed director of national intelligence in March 2017, becoming the fifth person to hold the post since it was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to oversee and coordinate the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies.
His departure had been rumored for months, and intelligence officials had been expecting him to leave before the 2020 presidential campaign season reached its peak.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted Sunday: “The mission of the intelligence community is to speak truth to power. As DNI, Dan Coats stayed true to that mission.”
Trump’s announcement that Coats would be leaving came days after Robert Mueller’s public testimony on his two-year investigation into Russian election interference and potential obstruction of justice by Trump, which officials said both emboldened and infuriated the president.
Trump once called Coats to complain about the investigation and how it was affecting the government’s foreign policy. Coats told prosecutors he responded that the best thing to do was to let the investigation take its course.
In February, he publicly cast doubt on the prospects of persuading North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program despite the diplomatic efforts of the administration, which has touted its outreach to the isolated country as one of its most important foreign policy achievements.
Coats, in testimony to Congress as part of annual national intelligence assessment, said North Korea would be “unlikely” to give up its nuclear weapons or its ability to produce
them because “its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.”
Trump publicly bristled at the testimony of Coats, the head of the CIA and other officials who contradicted his own positions on Iran, Afghanistan and the Islamic State group as well as North Korea. The intelligence officials were “passive and naive,” he said in a tweet.
In an appearance Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Ratcliffe questioned the legitimacy of the Mueller report on Russian election interference and urged an investigation into potential wrongdoing during the Obama administration.
His remarks echoed his questioning of Mueller last week, in which the Texas Republican challenged the legal basis for the report’s conclusions.
As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Ratcliffe was heavily involved in a House Gopled investigation last year about decisions “made and not made” by the Justice Department during the 2016 election.
That probe questioned whether the department was biased against then-candidate Donald Trump and whether it abused surveillance powers as it began the Russia investigation.
A former federal prosecutor, Ratcliffe was often one of the most aggressive questioners in closeddoor depositions.
Democrats were cautious if not outright skeptical. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tweeted: “It’s clear Rep. Ratcliffe was selected because he exhibited blind loyalty to @realdonaldtrump with his demagogic questioning of Mueller. If Senate Republicans elevate such a partisan player to a position requiring intelligence expertise & non-partisanship, it’d be a big mistake.”