A series of fortuitous events has former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats feeling “spared” from the whistleblower complaint that led to impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
Coats, a former Republican senator from Indiana, claimed to have no insider knowledge during an interview that aired Wednesday on The World and Everything in It podcast.
Coats said he conveyed his desire to resign as spy chief months before Trump announced in a late-July tweet that he would be departing the role on Aug. 15. His successor, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, received a CIA analyst’s complaint from Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson one day later.
“I didn’t know the inspector general’s report was coming, but this was a date that the president had announced earlier would be my last day,” Coats said.
“I felt bad for the new interim director of national intelligence. I hired him to be head of our counterterrorism organization. But here, the poor guy ends up now interim director of national intelligence, and then that inspector general’s report came across his desk, and I felt bad that he was put in that position,” Coats said. “I had no idea that this would happen, but I guess I was spared, and he was the one that had to go before the Congress in a difficult time and deal with this issue.”
The complaint, which Atkinson deemed to be urgent and credible, raised concerns about Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which the U.S. leader pressed for an investigation into his political rivals and an effort to conceal details of that private conversation and others using a highly secure computer system.
Coats said he was not aware of the phone conversation and guessed that his impending exit was the reason why.
“I think that probably the White House felt that I was going to be leaving very, very soon, and it wasn’t necessary for me to see the transcript or hear the call,” he said.
After receiving the complaint in mid-August, Maguire sought guidance from the White House and the Justice Department. He blocked Atkinson from sharing it with Congress but did allow the watchdog to notify Capitol Hill of its existence.
Following a clash over access with Democratic lawmakers, the complaint was declassified on Sept. 25, the same day the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call was released, and it was made available to the public the next day. The complaint led to impeachment proceedings in the Democrat-led House, which passed two articles of impeachment nearly three weeks ago that charged Trump with abuse of power in dealing with Ukraine and obstruction of Congress.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, is withholding articles of impeachment because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has signaled he may not call any witnesses. The Kentucky Republican plans to move ahead with rules for an impeachment trial without an agreement from Democrats.
Asked if he thought the timing of his resignation might be related to the call, Coats said, “It sure looks like it did, but it didn’t.”
Coats pinned his resignation on “a series of things that made me believe that it would be in the best interest of the president and in the best interest of me to submit my resignation at a future date.”
“This was conveyed to the president as significant — months ahead of the time that I left,” he said. “But the timing of leaving was left to his determination, and of course I learned about that through a tweet to me that was provided just days before I stepped down.”
