Washington: Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, is resigning after a turbulent two years in which he and President Donald Trump were often at odds over Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump named a GOP congressman and fierce loyalist to replace him.
Trump announced Co-ats’ departure as August 15 in a tweet Sunday thanking Coats for his service. He said he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to the post and that he will soon name an acting official. Ratcliffe is a frequent Tru-mp defender who fiercely questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week.
Coats often appeared out of step with Trump and disclosed to prosecutors how he was urged by the Republican president to publicly deny any link between Russia and the Trump campaign. The frayed relationship refle-cted broader divisions between the president and the government’s intelligence agencies.
Coats’ public, and sometimes personal, disagreements with Trump over policy and intelligence included Russian election interference and North Korean nuclear capabilities. Trump had long been skeptical of the nation’s intelligence agencies, which provoked his ire by concluding that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to get him elected.
In the resignation on Sunday night, Coats said serving as the nation’s top intelligence official has been a “distinct privilege” but that it was time for him to “move on”. He cited his work to strengthen the intelligence community’s effort to prevent harm to US.
