2016 ELECTION/INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Without consulting the White House, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats decided to reassert the intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election Monday [7-16-18], publicly breaking with President Donald Trump, who earlier had expressed doubts about that finding over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial. Coats faced ‘a choice’ after Trump issued a stunning rebuke of the US intelligence community, saying he doesn’t ‘see any reason why’ Russia would be responsible for interfering in the 2016 election — a message that was only amplified by the fact that he made the comments while standing alongside Putin at a news conference in Helsinki, Finland. Rather than staying quiet, Coats opted to issue a strongly worded statement backing the intelligence assessment that Russia did, in fact, interfere in the election. He also reaffirmed his commitment to ‘provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security’…Amid a flood of criticism back home, Trump later tweeted from Air Force One that he has ‘GREAT confidence in MY intelligence people’ but that message has done little to reassure those who feel he undermined the US in front of its greatest geopolitical adversary and are concerned by the President’s willingness to believe Putin over his own intelligence apparatus. Trump’s comments on Monday are fueling questions about whether Coats should continue to serve in his current role as DNI.”
–Zachary Cohen and Jim Sciutto, “Trump clashes with intelligence chief over Russian threat,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, July 16, 2018 5:34 pm