https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/28/us/politics/dan-coats-intelligence-chief-out.html
Mr. Ratcliffe has been a staunch defender of Mr. Trump. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, he sharply questioned Robert S. Mueller III, the former special counsel, at last week’s hearing.
Mr. Coats had long been expected to depart of his own accord, an administration official said, but he ended up staying on longer so it would not seem as if he was forced out during a time of conflict with Mr. Trump. In a meeting last week, Mr. Coats told Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that he was ready to move on.
Mr. Coats, who helped devise President George W. Bush’s compassionate conservative agenda, had been an important link between the Trump administration and the Republican establishment.
With Mr. Coats gone, those ties, at least on national security matters, are likely to weaken.
Mr. Trump had weighed firing Mr. Coats since he took issue with the president’s assertions, after a 2018 meeting in Finland with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, that challenged the intelligence community’s conclusions that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential race. Mr. Coats also questioned the wisdom of a potential White House meeting between the two leaders.
In picking Mr. Ratcliffe, the president tapped a lawmaker who,
unlike Mr. Coats, has come to his defense against the investigation into Russia’s efforts to aid Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2016.
Mr. Ratcliffe met privately with Mr. Trump at the White House on July 19, according to administration officials, to discuss whether he would take the job. Less than a week later, Mr. Ratcliffe accused Mr. Mueller of not following Justice Department guidelines when the special counsel said he could not exonerate the president on obstruction of justice. If a special counsel cannot bring charges, he should not presume to say a target was not cleared, Mr. Ratcliffe said.
Before the Finland meeting,
Mr. Coats had become increasingly vocal in defending the intelligence agencies and their assessment that the Kremlin has been pursuing a campaign of cyberattacks aimed at undermining American democracy. Though Mr. Coats has long held those views, he made a deliberate decision to emphasize the intelligence agencies’ findings before the summit, in what some saw as a challenge to the White House.
Mr. Coats took the lead in a Jan. 29 presentation of global threats that was at odds with Mr. Trump’s views. The president the next day
called his intelligence chiefs “passive and naïve.”
In an indignant Twitter post,
Mr. Trump wrote, “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”
The report, and Mr. Coats’s testimony before the Senate, said North Korea was unlikely to give up its nuclear stockpile, Iran was not immediately taking steps to build a nuclear weapon and the Islamic State was still capable of stoking violence in Syria — all facts at odds with Mr. Trump’s worldview.
In a speech to intelligence officers in January, Mr. Coats said it was their duty to seek the truth about the world. “And when we find that truth, to speak the truth,” he added.
There was no greater point of friction between the men than Russia. Time after time, the White House has sought to weaken Mr. Coats’s language regarding the Kremlin.
Mr. Coats argued for a view of Russia as an adversary and pushed for closer cooperation and stronger ties with traditional American allies in Europe, nations that have been the focus of Mr. Trump’s ire as he sought closer relations with Moscow and wavered on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
A secret report by Mr. Coats about Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections contained a harsh assessment about Russia’s efforts to influence the American public by stoking conspiracy theories, inflame positions and polarizing the American population. But the public statement released by Mr. Coats’s office and edited by the White House contained little of the tough language.
