INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “It has been more than two weeks since President Donald Trump met one-on-one with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, but Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats admitted Thursday [8-2-18] that he is still does not know the details of what was said during the sit-down. Briefing reporters from the White House podium about the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent election interference by Russia and other potential actors, Coats and national security adviser John Bolton were asked to address the President’s commitment to the issue given he failed to directly confront Putin last month. While Bolton said Trump raised the issue during an expanded bilateral meeting with Putin, Coats clearly stated that he is ‘not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in Helsinki.’ Coats would not elaborate on why he, the nation’s top intelligence official, is “not in a position” to ‘fully understand’ what occurred during that meeting but his comments are sure to raise more questions about why he is in the dark. Days after the summit in Helsinki, Coats came under scrutiny after telling a crowd at the Aspen Security Forum that he had no idea what Trump said to Putin — a meeting he said Trump did not seek his advice on or he would have suggested the President do it ‘a different way.'”
–Zachary Cohen, “Trump’s intel chief still doesn’t ‘fully understand’ what happened in Putin meeting,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, August 2, 2018 3:46 pm