Dan Coats, the former director of national intelligence who just resigned, may no longer be pushing the buttons in Washington but his old staff, sprinkled inside and outside the Beltway, are and will be for years.
Twice a senator who was also a former House member and ambassador to Germany, the conservative Coats has a long list of former aides who are now in key jobs and ready to carry on his Hoosier legacy.
There is Sharon Soderstrom, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s chief of staff, who was a Coats chief of staff.
My friend and former colleague Dan Coats has devoted decades of his life in service to our country. I was reassured knowing that a man who took such a deliberate, thoughtful, and unbiased approach was at the helm of our intelligence community.
— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) July 29, 2019
There’s pundit Michael Gerson, who was Coats’ first speechwriter and who led former President George W. Bush’s speechwriting team. One-time staffer Ziad Ojakli also worked for Bush and then moved first to Ford Motor Co. where he was a vice president then to Softbank as senior vice president.
Former aide Tom Keller is the president of Keller Partners & Co., a boutique lobbying and government relations firm. Former media aide Tim Goeglein, who also worked in the Bush White House, is a vice president at Focus on the Family in Washington.
“Coats is proof that a successful public figure can also be an uncommonly decent man.” https://t.co/FtGbgI0DIE
— Michael Gerson (@MJGerson) July 30, 2019
Outside the Beltway, former aide Curt Smith is the director of the Indiana Family Policy Council.
“If Dan Coats is not a good man, there are no good men,” said Goeglein during a stop at the Heritage Foundation to talk about his new book, American Restoration: How Faith, Family, and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation.
