Top intel officials: No pressure to intervene

Coats, Rogers also refuse to answer panel’s key questions

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers told a Senate panel Wednesday that they would not answer questions about whether President Trump asked them to downplay possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials in last year’s election, but they said they did not feel “pressured” to interfere or intervene in the Russia investigation.

Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he did not believe it was appropriate for him to publicly discuss conversations he has had with the president.

“I have never felt pressured to intervene or interfere in any way with shaping intelligence in a political way or in relation to an ongoing investigation,” Coats testified in response to a question from Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va.

Warner was referring to reports, first published last month in The Washington Post, that Trump asked Coats and Rogers to publicly deny any collusion between his campaign and Russian officials in the 2016 presidential election. On Tuesday night, The

Post reported that Coats told associates in March that Trump asked him to try to persuade Comey to back off the FBI’s investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia.

Rogers also refused to answer Warner’s questions about his conversations with Trump about the Russia investigation.

“In the three-plus years that I have been the director of the National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, unethical, immoral or inappropriate,” Rogers said, adding that he has never felt “pressured” to do so.

Warner responded that even though Coats and Rogers “may not have felt pressured” by Trump, it’s important to know whether the president asked them to interfere or intervene in the Russia investigation or downplay the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, asked Coats and Rogers whether they would commit to answer questions during a closed session with the committee.