On Lawfare Quinta Jurecic introduces Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats:
While on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Coats signed on with the minority in the committee’s report on interrogation, along with Senators Richard Burr, James Risch, Marco Rubio, and Tom Coburn. He was one of only three members of the committee to vote against declassifying the report in 2014. Coats opposed the USA Freedom Act and voted against it, writing that the legislation significantly weakened U.S. intelligence capabilities.
Notably, Coats is banned from entering Russia—along with a number of other Senators and government officials—due to his support for sanctions against Russia in response to the annexation of Crimea in 2014. At the time, Coats stated that he found Russia’s behavior “unacceptable” and declared his intention to “lead efforts on Capitol Hill to bring Putin to his senses.” During his most recent term in the Senate, he was known as a Russia hawk who routinely pushed for a hard line against Russian adventurism in Ukraine. His position on Russia may cause friction with other members of the Trump team and will likely raise questions during his confirmation hearing given the President-elect’s coziness with the Kremlin. Coats’s previous hedging when asked if he would feel more comfortable with Trump controlling nuclear weapons than Obama may not help his case.
Coats’s connections to the intelligence community and reputation as a more traditional establishment Republican rather than a partisan bomb-thrower have been welcomed by some intelligence officials, who hope that Coats will be able to bridge the gap between the intelligence community and the President-elect.
And an easy confirmation, overall. This may be reassuring to those on the fence about dumping Trump in a hurry. But if Trump later disses Coats then we may see fireworks.
