USA TODAY International Edition
Trump’s top intel aide Dan Coats will step down
WASHINGTON – Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is stepping down soon after a tenure that featured clashes with President Donald Trump over Russia, North Korea, and other national security issues. Trump confirmed the departure Sunday. The president also announced he will replace Coats with Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas. Trump said Coats will leave office on Aug. 15.
“I would like to thank Dan for his great service to our Country,” Trump said.
As for his new nominee to the post, Trump noted on Twitter that Ratcliffe is a former U.S. attorney who “will lead and inspire greatness for the Country he loves.”
The Senate must still confirm Ratcliffe as the new director of national intelligence.
Coats has clashed with Trump, and the former Indiana senator has widely been considered among the most vulnerable members of the president’s administration – even as both have downplayed talk of tension.
At a time when Trump was repeatedly describing the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border as a national security crisis, Coats declined to include immigration as a major threat facing the country when he spoke to lawmakers in January.
Coats also appeared to break with the White House on North Korea, asserting that Pyongyang was unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons program.
Coats, a Republican who served in the Senate in the 1990s and again in 2010, was appointed in 2017, to serve as the director of national intelligence, succeeding James Clapper.