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President Trump has told confidants he's eager to remove Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, according to five sources who have discussed the matter directly with the president. The state of play: Trump hasn't told our sources when he plans to make a move, but they say his discussions on the topic have been occurring for months — often unprompted — and the president has mentioned potential replacements since at least February. A source who spoke to Trump about Coats a week ago said the president gave them the impression that the move would happen "sooner rather than later."...

Full title: Adam Schiff Demands Authority Over Executive Branch Declassification, and Advanced Warning of Investigative Content Oh, this is rich…. Shifty and hyper-partisan Adam Schiff, quite possibly the world’s slimiest human, writes a letter (as below) to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, demanding legislative branch authority over executive branch declassification. The scale of obtuse, hypocritical and self-serving protestation is off-the-charts.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff demanded on Friday that the nation’s intelligence community report to Congress any effort by Attorney General William Barr to declassify national security secrets over its objections. Schiff made his demand in a letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, calling on Coats to brief his committee in person and to share any information that Barr has requested as part of a review of the origins of the FBI’s investigation of links between Russia and the Trump campaign. Last month, Barr announced his intention to review the decisions that led to the Russia probe,...

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats says the nation's spy agencies will provide the Justice Department all appropriate information for its review of intelligence activities related to Russian interference in the 2016 election. President Donald Trump claims his campaign was the victim of "spying" and has given Attorney General William Barr full authority to publicly disclose still-secret information collected during the investigation. Some former intelligence officials and Democrats worry that Barr will cherry-pick intelligence to paint a misleading picture about the roots of the probe.

We didn’t get to this yesterday but let’s do it now because it’s one of the funnier bits of spin to come out of Trump’s first two years. A few days ago his intel chiefs went before Congress for a hearing and either contradicted or qualified some of his biggest foreign-policy boasts. Is ISIS defeated? Well, they’ve lost almost all of their territory, said Dan Coats and Gina Haspel, but they still command thousands of fighters and we need to stay on top of the problem. Not a great talking point for Trump’s withdrawal from Syria. How about North...

To manifest his opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to pull all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan, Gen. James Mattis went public and resigned as secretary of defense. Now Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, in public testimony to Congress, has contradicted Trump about the threats that face the nation. Contrary to what the president believes, Coats says, North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. ISIS remains a serious threat, even if the caliphate has been rolled up. And there is no evidence that Iran, though hostile and aggressive,...

The background here is that any unilateral declassification by President Trump will end up putting him in opposition to a variety of corrupt interests. As a direct result he will be facing legal action from the legislative branch. With that accepted, here is the most strategic approach. All versions of the Carter Page FISA applications (DOJ) (FBI) (ODNI). All of the Bruce Ohr 302’s filled out by the FBI. (FBI) (ODNI) All of Bruce Ohr’s emails (FBI) (DOJ) (CIA) (ODNI) All relevant documents pertaining to the supportive material within the FISA application. (FBI) (DOJ-NSD ) (DoS) (CIA) (DNI) (NSA) (ODNI);...

Leading congressional Democrats are looking to stall the process to release documents related to the Russia investigation, which President Donald Trump ordered declassified on Monday. Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner, sent a letter Tuesday asking Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to provide an “immediate briefing” to the Gang of Eight before declassifying and releasing the documents. The four Democrats expressed “profound alarm” at Trump’s order to declassify the records. Trump ordered the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National...

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) on Thursday called President Trump’s furious reaction to an anonymous administration official's op-ed disparaging him in The New York Times a “manifestation of his instability.” Pelosi said her “first thought” was that Vice President Pence penned the opinion piece, which described efforts among staffers in the Trump administration to push back against the president's instincts. Not long after the op-ed was published Wednesday afternoon, Trump tweeted “Treason?” in all caps. He later demanded the Times identify the piece's author "for National Security purposes." “The president saying it’s treason is, again, a manifestation of his...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry responded Wednesday night to the explosive New York Times op-ed alleging a “quiet resistance” inside the Trump administration actively working to thwart the president’s agenda. “It scares the hell out of me,” Mr. Kerry told comedian Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show.” “First of all, there is a reassurance,” he added. “It means that for James Buchanan, he’s no longer the worst president.” A senior Trump administration official who was granted anonymity by The Times penned an op-ed Wednesday claiming to be part of a group of individuals “working diligently from within” to sabotage...

The top U.S. intelligence official said Saturday he meant no disrespect to President Donald Trump in a televised interview discussing the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said his Thursday comments at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado were not intended to be critical of the president’s decision to invite Putin to a meeting in Washington later this year. “Some press coverage has mischaracterized my intentions in responding to breaking news presented to me during a live interview,” Coats said. “My admittedly awkward response was in no way meant to be disrespectful or criticize...

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Thursday that he felt he "needed to correct the record" following President Trump's comments during the Helsinki summit with Russia President Vladimir Putin, adding that he wished Trump had "made a different statement" as it is "undeniable that the Russians are taking a lead on this." Our thought bubble: It was a STUNNING interview ... and is already catching heat and attention among Trump loyalists. I've already had two phone calls from sources close to Trump expressing their astonishment. The fact that Trump’s own intelligence director is saying these things...

The U.S. intelligence chief says that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in a year, although it is "technically" possible. Reuters reported that U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats made the remarks on Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. The report said Coats was responding to a question about U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton's recent suggestion of a one-year timeframe for the North’s denuclearization. Bolton said that if Pyongyang was willing to disclose all of its weapons of mass destruction programs, it would be possible to dismantle the "overwhelming bulk" of them...

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Tuesday that he had misspoken a day earlier in Helsinki, Finland, when he appeared to take the word of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies on Russian election meddling in 2016. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he “accepts” those findings. Mr. Trump said the misunderstanding arose from his use of a “double negative.” “The sentence should have been ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’ sort of a double negative,” he said. “So you can put that in and I think that probably...

Oh, my. The media and the leftists (including GOPe RINO NeverTrumpers) cannot understand why President Trump doesn't trust the deep state CIA/FBI/DOJ political operators, ie, the deep state swamp. Can't be that these same deep state swamp dwellers have been colluding and working overtime for the last several years using and abusing their government offices trying to prevent Trump from winning the nomination, prevent candidate Trump from being elected, prevent president-elect Trump from taking office, trying to overturn President Trump's election? President Trump was elected specifically to drain the swamp. No one said it was gonna be easy. Looks like...

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Thursday a meeting between a bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders and intelligence and law enforcement officials is a “farce” because the disclosure of classified information should be limited to the so-called “Gang of Eight” — a collection of Senate and House leaders who traditionally receive the briefings on sensitive intelligence matters. Two intelligence briefings are scheduled for Thursday afternoon to discuss the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. It is said to include details about an FBI informant who contacted members of the...

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet on Monday with Justice Department and intelligence officials to discuss his order to look into whether his 2016 presidential campaign was infiltrated or surveilled under the Obama administration, a White House official told Reuters. Trump will meet at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, the official said.

President Trump, Chief-of-Staff John Kelly and White House Counsel Don McGahn met with DOJ Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats today to discuss the revelations of former FBI, DOJ and intelligence officials conducting politically motivated surveillance on the Trump campaign in 2015, 2016 and 2017. After the meeting the White House released the following statement: “Based on the meeting with the President, the Department of Justice has asked the Inspector General to expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigations or the Department of...

Alexander Downer — the Australian diplomat whose tip to the FBI about a London pub conversation led to the massive probe of allegations of collusions between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia — is himself closely tied to a Chinese firm experts say is deeply involved in espionage against America. Just last month, all six top U.S. intelligence bosses warned Americans against using digital telecommunications equipment produced by Chinese smartphone producer Huawei.

U.S. lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — and top national security officials in the Trump administration offered the same advice publicly and privately, often clashing with Trump’s Twitter stream: the United States remains staunchly committed to its European allies, is furious with the Kremlin about election interference and isn’t contemplating a preemptive strike on North Korea to halt its nuclear program. But Trump himself engaged in a running counterpoint to the message, taking aim on social media at his own national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, because he “forgot” on Saturday to tell the Munich Security Conference that the results...