Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Thursday he was just “doing his job” when he rebuked President Trump’s remarks dismissing intelligence reports about Russia.
“I was just doing my job,” Coats told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell during an interview at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colo. “As I expressed to the president on my third visit to the Oval Office as his adviser, I said: ‘Mr. President, there will be times I have to bring news to you that you don’t want to hear. But know that it will to the best extent be unvarnished, non-politicized, and the best our incredible intelligence community can produce.'”
[More: Trump calls Dan Coats a ‘great patriot,’ says he’ll accept his Russia assessment]
“I felt at this point in time that what we had assessed and reassessed and reassessed and carefully gone over still stands. And that it was important to take that stand on behalf of the intelligence community, on behalf of the American people,” Coats added.
Coats, a Trump appointee, issued a statement on Monday that said the U.S. intelligence community has been “clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.”
The statement came after Trump’s press conference alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, where he said he didn’t “see any reason why it would be Russia” who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
On Tuesday, Trump walked back the statement, explaining he meant to say he did not see any reason why it “wouldn’t” be Russia and that he accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in 2016.
“The president saw a need to clarify the position,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday. “He saw how his comments were being interpreted, he looked at the transcript and clarified those comments.”
Sanders added: “The president and his administration are working very hard to make sure that Russia is unable to meddle in our elections as they have done in the past.”
Trump and Putin met privately for two hours in Helsinki.
When asked by Mitchell about the multiple statements Trump has made about Russian interference, Pompeo explained how he felt: “Obviously, I wished he had made a different statement, but I think that now that has been clarified, based on his late reactions to this and so I don’t think I want to go any further than that.”
