Trump Confirms He Will Nominate Former Sen. Dan Coats as Director of National Intelligence
Coats is a former senator from Indiana.
— -- President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday morning that he will nominate former Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana to serve as Director of National Intelligence.
"I'm very confident that Senator Dan Coats is the right choice to serve as director of national intelligence," Trump said in statement. "Dan has clearly demonstrated the deep subject matter expertise and sound judgment required to lead our intelligence community. If confirmed as director of national intelligence, he will provide unwavering leadership that the entire intelligence community can respect, and will spearhead my administration’s ceaseless vigilance against those who seek to do us harm."
ABC News reported on Thursday, citing senior Trump transition officials, that the announcement of Coats for the post was forthcoming.
Coats, 73, made a visit to Trump Tower late last year and said at the time that he was not seeking a position in the Trump administration.
The Republican was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee during his term, which ended this year after he decided not to seek re-election. He was also the U.S. ambassador to Germany under President George W. Bush.
The announcement of his nomination comes as a senior Trump transition official tells ABC News that Trump and his team are mulling an overhaul of the national intelligence director's role, which Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Friday that is not the case.
The director of national intelligence office was created after 9/11 to coordinate the work of the nation’s intelligence-gathering and analysis agencies.
Trump clashed with U.S. intelligence agencies over the last several weeks over whether they were correct in their conclusion that Russia conducted cyberattacks to interfere with the U.S. election.
On Friday, after receiving a briefing from intelligence officials on the alleged Russian hacking, the president-elect said it had been "a constructive meeting" and that he has “tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation."