Until he was unceremoniously whacked from office at the tail end of July, Dan Coats oversaw 17 U.S. intelligence agencies from his perch as the Director of National Intelligence. He was a Trump appointee. Before that, he was a Republican senator from Indiana. I would love to hear his inside take on Trump’s most clear-cut impeachable act.
Coats has chosen to remain silent, and maybe that’s fine for now. Others in Trump’s orbit – Rudy Giuliani, Bill Barr, Mike Pompeo, special envoy Kurt Volkert (who abruptly quit on Friday) – appear to be the central players in Trump’s smoking-gun scheme to coerce Ukraine to dig dirt on the Bidens for the benefit of Trump’s re-election bid. But Coats was a rare Trump appointee who dared to publicly contradict Dear Leader, and at some point during this autumn’s impeachment inquiry, his perspective about Trump’s criminally feckless attitude toward election security would be invaluable. Surely he knows stuff that he’s currently not willing to tell us.
I’ve therefore assembled a Dan Coats timeline. Decide for yourself whether he’d be a worthy witness.
Feb. 13, 2018: At a time when Trump is still denying that Russia disrupted the ’16 election on his behalf, Coats tells the Senate Intelligence Committee, “There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts (to disrupt the ’16 election) as successful.” He tells the senators that Russia will try again, but that, within the Trump regime, there is “no single agency in charge” of blocking the Russians.
July 13, 2018: On the eve of Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin at a summit in Helsinki, Coats issues a warning about Russian disruptions in America. “These actions are persistent, they’re pervasive and they are meant to undermine America’s democracy on a daily basis, regardless of whether it is election time or not. The warnings signs are there. The system is blinking. And it is why I believe we are at a critical point…the warning lights are blinking red again.”
July 14, 2018: Asked about Coats’ statement, Trump told CBS News, “I don’t know if I agree with that.”
July 16, 2018: At the Helsinki summit, Trump sides with Putin against Coats on the issue of Russian interference in the ’16 election. “He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
July 16, 2018, a few hours later: Coats releases a statement that was not vetted in advance by the White House. “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.”
July 19, 2019 (fast-forwarding one year): Coats announces that he has created a new position, an “Elections Threat Executive.” Coats says: “Election security is an enduring challenge and a top priority for the intelligence community.”
July 23, 2019: Coats says, “I can think of no higher priority mission than working to counter adversary efforts to undermine the very core of our democratic process.”
July 25, 2019: In a phone call with Trump, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky asks for the promised military aid that Trump has failed to provide. Trump says in response that he wants Zelensky to do him a “favor” and dig up dirt on the Bidens for his ’20 campaign. A record of the call is subsequently buried in a “classified” electronic file to which few officials have access.
July 28, 2019: Trump suddenly announces in a tweet that Coats will no longer be the Director of National Intelligence. He tries to replace Coats with a toadying Republican congressman, John Ratcliffe, who has virtually no intelligence experience.
Aug. 2, 2019: Trump withdraws Ratcliffe’s name because it turns out that Ratcliffe inflated his resume to cover his lack of qualifications. Trump tweets that Ratcliffe was “being treated very unfairly by the LameStream Media.”
Aug. 8, 2019: Coats’ logical DNI successor, if only in an acting capacity, is his top deputy, Sue Gordon. But because Trump questions her loyalty (to him, naturally), she is compelled to quit her job. She learns that her time was up while she’s holding an intelligence meeting on election security.
Aug. 12, 2019: The intelligence community whistleblower files his bombshell complaint about Trump.
Sept. 24, 2019: After remaining mute for nearly two months, Coats surfaces last Tuesday at an event sponsored by the Economic Club of Indianapolis. He is very careful. He says the whistleblower’s complaint never came to him, which basically says nothing. He says we’re going through a tough time as a nation, but that he has faith in “our founding fathers” and our government’s “balance of powers.” And he tells an Indiana journalist that there will be a time for him to talk about the whistleblower’s findings, but that now is not the time.
Let’s hope it is soon.