Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats confirms Donald Trump asked him to kill Trump-Russia probe
Donald Trump is making this far too easy for the Special Counsel investigating him. It turns out Trump has been caught red-handed committing yet another failed instance of obstruction of justice, the crime which brought down Richard Nixon. Trump asked Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to lean on FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation into Michael Flynn – and now it turns out Coats documented the incident.
Coats told associates about Trump’s obstruction at the time it happened, according to the Washington Post (link), meaning he left an evidence trail. If this sounds all to familiar, it’s because the same storyline keeps playing out with Trump and different U.S. intelligence leaders.
First, Donald Trump asked James Comey to end the investigation. But Comey refused, and instead he wrote a detailed memo of the exchange and shared the memo with his FBI associates. Then, Trump asked NSA Director Mike Rogers to sabotage the FBI’s investigation. Rogers also refused, and he had the NSA document the incident. And now it turns out Trump has done the same with Coats. For those keeping track of these things, Coats recently took over the DNI job after James Clapper retired at the end of President Obama’s tenure.
Dan Coats was asked during congressional testimony two weeks ago whether Donald Trump had pressured him in this manner, and there was famously long pause before he said he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to answer the question. That was a de facto yes; if the answer were no, he would have said so. But now, with Comey and Rogers both set to testify this week, Coats appears to have had his associates plant this story in the media in order to preemptively pile on against Trump. Follow Palmer Report on Facebook and Twitter.
