NBC: Coats Told House Intel Committee Trump Is Obsessed With Russia Probe

UNITED STATES - APRIL 30: Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., speaks during the news conference on Ukraine on Wednesday, April 30, 2014. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
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Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told investigators with the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday that President Donald Trump seemed obsessed with the Russia probe and asked Coats several times to publicly deny that there was evidence of collusion, NBC News reported Thursday evening, citing an unnamed U.S. official.

Coats and Adm. Mike Rogers, the National Security Agency director, told special counsel Robert Mueller and Senate investigators last week that Trump suggested that they publicly deny that there was evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, according to a CNN report.

During a public hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee, both Coats and Rogers declined to discuss their conversations with Trump. Rogers said at the time that he had not been “directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate.” Coats told the Senate committee that he “never felt pressure to intervene or interfere in any way with shaping intelligence in a political way or in relationship to an ongoing investigation.”

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  1. Of course he is. The Russia probe will eventually lead to this, which the WaPo broke this morning:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/

    …and I quote:

    Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.

    Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

    But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.

    At that point, the outlines of the Russian assault on the U.S. election were increasingly apparent. Hackers with ties to Russian intelligence services had been rummaging through Democratic Party computer networks, as well as some Republican systems, for more than a year. In July, the FBI had opened an investigation of contacts between Russian officials and Trump associates. And on July 22, nearly 20,000 emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee were dumped online by WikiLeaks.

    The president is a Traitor, folks. He is trying to stop the investigation that will expose him as an enemy agent.

  2. I read all this this AM as well, It was a fairly long article that retraced a lot of what we do know but did lay out the Obama administration’s thinking during and sense.
    And, we’re done with the maybes and possiblies, the FACT that Poot-en personally oversaw the interference with our national election and the methods by which that occurred are just public record now.

    Obama is still on it and even this administration is having to concede the reality, albeit barely.

    Where we are at, is what exactly to do about it. The previous sanctions were a warning shot basically and we could’ve done much more and in fact should’ve considering the ramifications of it all.
    Obama held way back on his response so as not to influence the election that even he saw as in the bag for Hillary.
    I am struggling to determine whether that was a good or bad choice, knowing the timing.

    Unless the Dems can pull off a big win in the House, we’ll likely never see a much bigger response or any big orange heads rolling.

  3. He is panicked by Mueller and the team he’s assembled. His lawyers have certainly told him the bona fides of the people working with Mueller and PeePee has to have some clue of what is to come.

    He can tweet, threaten, intimidate, fume, rail, demean, whine… whatever. The train has left the station and is barreling down on him.

    Great article in Time Magazine about Mueller and Tramp. The closing paragraph is ominous

    It was tempting, as the wheels of another Washington investigation accelerated away from the station, to say that we’ve seen this all before, though never with a protagonist quite like President Trump. In his outsize personality and unmasked audacity, he’s making it clear that this all-too-familiar story has roots much deeper than even the most shopworn Washington lore. It goes back to the Greeks, who understood that the peril of kings was hubris, and that hubris was an invitation to the avenging goddess called Nemesis. In Robert Mueller, Trump may have found his.

  4. Avatar for win win says:

    Coats told the Senate committee that he “never felt pressure to intervene or interfere in any way with shaping intelligence in a political way or in relationship to an ongoing investigation.”

    .

    Trump suggested that [Coats and Rogers] publicly deny that there was evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, according to a CNN report.

    No pressure.

  5. The sad thing is that I just can’t tell whether this is concern caused by guilt or whether it’s concern caused by a narcissistic, near-senile buffoon who cannot handle criticism or whether it’s concern caused by someone who sees everything as a zero-sum game and who has to win and dominate at all costs.

    The really sad thing is that, as long as he’s President, we’re all screwed.

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