National

Intelligence director Coats caught off guard by Trump inviting Putin to Washington

WASHINGTON – President Trump's director of national intelligence said Thursday he will stay in his job as long as he can "speak truth."

The comment from Dan Coats came just days after he pushed back against Trump for siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And it came during an interview that was interrupted by breaking news that Trump has invited Putin to Washington.

"Say that again?" Coats said to NBC's Andrea Mitchell at the Aspen Security Forum.

Mitchell had been interviewing Coats live when she told him of the breaking news. The White House had announced on Twitter that discussions are underway for Putin to visit Washington this fall, as a follow-up to the highly controversial summit in Helsinki this week.

Coats grimaced.

"OK," he said, while laughing. "That's going to be special."

In Helsinki, Trump appeared to accept Putin's denial of interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections over what Coats and the U.S. intelligence community has said are undisputed facts.

Trump said Putin "just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."

Hours later, Coats put out an unusual statement emphasizing that the intelligence community has been "clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy."

Trump has since said he agrees with the U.S. intelligence community's conclusions about Russia's 2016 interference and continued targeting of the U.S.

Asked by Mitchell why he spoke out, Coats said he was "just doing my job."

"It was important to take that stand on behalf of the intelligence community and on behalf of the American people," he said.

But now that the record has been corrected, and has been "discussed personally with the president," Coats added, "I think it's time to move on."

Some commentators have urged Coats to resign to protect his honor and the honor of the intelligence community after Trump contradicted him by name as he stood next to Putin.

"As long as I'm able to have the ability to seek the truth and speak the truth, I'm on board," Coats said when asked if he's ever considered quitting.

After Coats' remarks, the news site Axios reported that "sources close to Trump" were speculating about whether Coats would be fired. The Washington Post reported that Trump's advisers were in "an uproar" about the interview, quoting one anonymous official saying "Coats has gone rogue."

Coats never directly criticized Trump during the extended interview.

But in addition to his candid reaction to the Putin invitation, Coats made several candid comments that might not sit well with the White House:

• He said he would not have suggested that Trump meet alone with Putin in Helsinki, and there's always a risk that Putin taped the meeting.

• He said he did not know in advance of Trump's White House meeting last year with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, at which Trump revealed highly classified information. The meeting, Coats said, was "probably not the best thing to do." Though Coats also said he doesn't view it as a "nefarious attempt to do anything," noting that Trump is a president "who did not come through the system."

• He described Trump as preferring his daily intelligence briefings to be oral, with charts and models. Coats said that the briefings always run over time as Trump asks a lot of questions.

• He said only time will tell if North Korea is willing to give up its nuclear weapons. But while Coats said the U.S. shouldn't "go forward with the assumption that all this is going to work," he added, "Why not give it a shot?"

• Asked about Trump's recent comment that while he agreed Russia interfered in the elections, there "could be other people also," Coats said it's undeniable that Russia took the lead and "we need to call them out on that."

In advance of Trump's meeting with Putin, Coats last week delivered a warning of the potential for a large scale cybersecurity attack. He named Russia as the "most aggressive foreign actor, no question."

Coats added Thursday that "it's very clear that virtually nothing happens (in Russia) of any kind of consequence that Vladimir Putin doesn't know about or hasn't ordered."

Coats' recent public appearances are unusual in a job for which he has tried to keep a low profile.

"I spent a lifetime trying to get my name in the paper back at home so people would vote for me, remember the name when they went in the voting booth," Coats said of the years he spent representing Indiana in Congress. "I have a job now where it’s just the opposite. I’d like to spend my lifetime not being in the paper."

Pressed on whether he's ever considered resigning, Coats said there are days when he thinks, "What am I doing?"

But there are a lot more days when he thinks about how critical his mission is, as he starts his morning asking his staff to "tell me the bad things that happened since I fell asleep."

"This is not a fun job," Coats said. "It's a meaningful job. But it's not fun."

Follow Maureen Groppe on Twitter: @mgroppe