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US-POLITICS-INTELLIGENCE-COATS
US intel chief to leave Trump administration
WASHINGTON, July 29, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US intelligence chief Dan Coats will
leave office next month, Donald Trump announced on Sunday, after a tenure in
which he was regularly at odds with the president.
The departure of Coats — who has, however, sought to avoid direct
confrontation with Trump during his time as Director of National Intelligence
— is the latest high-profile exit from the mercurial president’s turnover-
plagued administration.
Trump tweeted that Coats will leave on August 15, saying he plans to
nominate Representative John Ratcliffe of Texas, who serves on the House
intelligence, judiciary and homeland security committees, to replace him.
“A former U.S. Attorney, John will lead and inspire greatness for the
Country he loves,” Trump wrote, also thanking Coats “for his great service to
our Country.”
If Ratcliffe’s nomination is approved, Trump will get an intelligence chief
who is more in synch with his views.
In Congress, he has been a staunch defender of Trump and has criticized two
of the president’s nemeses, former FBI chief James Comey and special counsel
Robert Mueller.
Ratcliffe has also said he has “seen no evidence” that Russian election
meddling helped bring Trump to office, has backed the president’s assertion
that court-approved surveillance of his campaign amounted to spying, and has
supported his hawkish policy on Iran.
The choice of Ratcliffe was hailed by various Republicans — including
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who tweeted that he “will bring
strength and accountability in his new role” — but drew criticism from other
quarters.
“Our Director of National Intelligence should be above partisan politics,
speak truth to power, and resist Trump’s abuses of authority. John Ratcliffe
doesn’t fit that bill,” Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren
tweeted.
Coats has not seen eye-to-eye with Trump on a range of issues while serving
as the official who oversees and coordinates the CIA, NSA and other US
espionage bodies.
– Russia, N. Korea, IS –
He backed the US intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered
in the 2016 election that brought Trump to office — something the president
was long loath to acknowledge.
The intelligence chief also disagreed with Trump’s decision to hold two
hours of closed-door talks with Russian President Vladmir Putin in Helsinki
in July 2018 with no one else present but interpreters.
“If he had asked me how that ought to be conducted, I would have suggested
a different way,” Coats said.
He acknowledged he was not informed about the contents of the talks, saying
three days after they were held: “I don’t know what happened in that
meeting.”
Trump’s attempts to get North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal via
talks with Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un was another point of disagreement.
“We continue to assess that North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its
nuclear weapons and production capabilities, even as it seeks to negotiate
partial denuclearization steps to obtain key US and international
concessions,” Coats said in the annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” report
earlier this year.
North Korea’s leaders see having a nuclear weapons capability as “critical
to regime survival,” Coats said.
Trump, however, has taken the view that Kim is willing to give up his
nuclear arms.
The report also warned that the Islamic State (IS) group — despite Trump’s
assertions to the contrary — was hardly vanquished and could easily rise
again in a vacuum left by departing US forces, resuming global attacks and
restarting its propaganda machine.
IS “still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, and it
maintains eight branches, more than a dozen networks, and thousands of
dispersed supporters around the world, despite significant leadership and
territorial losses,” Coats said.
Coats’s departure will be the latest in a long series of exits by top Trump
administration officials, including defense secretary Jim Mattis, homeland
security chief Kirstjen Nielsen, chief of staff John Kelly and top diplomat
Rex Tillerson.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0816 hrs