Dan Coats resigns: Trump’s director of national intelligence (DNI) to step down, Donald Trump nominates John Ratcliffe — live updates – CBS News

President Trump is nominating GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, Mr. Trump tweeted Sunday night. Coats will leave office Aug. 15, the president announced, and an acting director will serve in the interim. 

“I am pleased to announce that highly respected Congressman John Ratcliffe of Texas will be nominated by me to be the Director of National Intelligence. A former U.S. Attorney, John will lead and inspire greatness for the Country he loves,” the president announced, after a weekend of firing off angry tweets at Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings. “Dan Coats, the current Director, will…be leaving office on August 15th. I would like to thank Dan for his great service to our Country. The Acting Director will be named shortly.”

Axios first reported Coats’ expected departure and said the White House would likely nominate Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe aggressively questioned Robert Mueller in last week’s hearing on the former special counsel’s report. 

Ratcliffe, one of the most conservative members of Congress by his voting record, has served in the House since 2015. He’s a member of both the House Intelligence Committee and House Judiciary Committee, and once prosecuted terrorism cases. 

Coats, a former senator from Indiana, has served as DNI since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s presidency and has at times been at odds with the president over Russian interference and election security. The possibility of Coats’ exit has long been speculated, given his public departures with the president. Coats, by all accounts, outlasted estimates of his own tenure; he had not expected to hold the job for more than a year, a congressional source noted.

Earlier this month Coats announced the creation of a new senior-level position to coordinate election security efforts across the intelligence community. Known as the election threats executive, the new position is responsible for coordinating “all election security activities, initiatives, and programs.”

One of Coats’ most memorable moments came last summer, when Coats during an Aspen Security Forum said he still didn’t know exactly what transpired in the one-on-one meeting between Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. When NBC’s Andrea Mitchell informed Coats the president had just invited Putin to the White House, news to Coats, Coats said on stage to Mitchell, “Say that again?” Adding, “Okaayyy. That’s gonna be special.”

Sara Cook, Kathryn Watson and Olivia Gazis contributed reporting.