The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coats is outspoken voice of reason on Russian meddling
Comments spark talk that intelligence chief could leave.
The Kremlin was no fan of Dan Coats.
It was March 2014 and relations between the United States and Russia were nose-diving. Earlier that year, Russian military forces had bashed into the Crimea, illegally annexing a portion of Ukraine in a geopolitical power grab denounced by western nations. In retaliation, the Obama administration ordered new economic sanctions. Firing back, the Kremlin announced a list of American officials banned from entering their country. The blacklisted Congress members including then-House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Coats, then a Republican senator from Indiana and a member of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee urging a tough response against the Crimea incursion.
Coats — a well-respected longtime Washington fixture who was once referred to by a Senate colleague as the chamber’s “Mister Rogers” — brushed off the Russian ban with a pinch of wry Midwestern humor.
“While I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to go on vacation with my family in Siberia this summer, I am honored to be on this list,” he said in a statement, The Washington Post reported at the time. “Putin’s recent aggression is unacceptable, and America must join with our European allies to isolate and punish Russia.”
Four years later, Coats, now director of national intelligence, is again pushing back against a Russian agenda, a stance that has pitched him into conflict with his boss.
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s summit this week with Vladimir Putin, the White House has been engulfed in mixed messages, at best, about whether Trump believes Russian agents meddled in the 2016 election.
But amid the clashing voices, Coats has struck a clear, strong note. On Monday, following the president’s controversial news conference with Putin in Helsinki, Coats responded with a statement saying the intelligence community has “been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling.”
On Thursday during an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell at the Aspen Security Forum, Coats admitted he would have advised against the one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin — but he had not been consulted. Coats also seemed dumbfounded by news the administration was planning to invite Putin to Washington in the fall.
“That’s going to be special,” Coats said to the laughter of the audience.
The comments this week underscore that Coats, as an in-house reality check to Trump regarding Russian interference, is increasingly at odds with Trump’s own feelings. The collision between the administration’s voice of reason and the volatile president has sparked speculation Coats may not be long for the administration.
Coats’ situation is all the more precarious in that he sits atop the country’s intelligence apparatus, the complex of more than a dozen agencies regularly blasted by Trump and his supporters as the “deep state.”
The Indiana Republican has checked off a number of government roles in his decadeslong public service career — including U.S. House member, senator, ambassador and lobbyist.
During the George W. Bush administration, Coats was appointed U.S. ambassador to Germany, taking up the post weeks before the September 11 attacks launched the global war on terror.
Coats was re-elected to the Senate in 2010, where he established himself as a social and fiscal conservative — his “Waste of the Week” speeches from the chamber floor highlighted profligate government spending. But Coats’ low-key manner also inspired bipartisan respect, particularly with his work on the Intelligence Committee.
Coats was not an early Trump supporter. He initially backed the presidential bid of Sen Marco Rubio, R-Fla., bid in 2016. Yet when the Trump administration announced Coats had been chosen for the top intelligence job, the news was met with approving nods from members of both parties.
“I worked with Dan, I’ve got a lot of respect for him, he was a great Intelligence Committee member, obviously he’s got a background as well as a foreign ambassador,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told The Post.