Coats: “It's undeniable that the Russians are taking a lead on this."
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Thursday that he wishes President Donald Trump hadn’t met alone with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Finland.
Coats said Thursday he did not know what happened in a meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki, Finland. The only other people present were two translators.
“If he had asked me how that ought to be conducted, I would have suggested a different way. But that’s not my role, that’s not my job,” Coats said.
[...]
Despite conflicting statements from the president this week on whether Russia remains a threat, the intelligence community still sees it that way, said Coats, who last week described cyber threats to U.S. national security as “blinking red.” FBI Director Christopher Wray also said at a separate Aspen forum this week that the country “continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day.”
“It’s just one click of the keyboard that could change this narrative, so we have to be ever-vigilant on this,” he said.
Coats did cover for DHS’s chief Neilsen but doesn’t cover her claims of ignorance about threats and past evidence of Russians favoring Trump, even as Putin admitted to it in the Helsinki presser.
The Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have evidence that Russia’s hacking attempts ahead of the 2018 midterms are as widespread as they were in 2016, Coats said, but “we cannot rest on that assumption.”
DAN, EVERYTHING RESTS ON ASSUMPTIONS
Andrea Mitchell: We have some breaking news. The WH has announced Vladimir Putin is coming to the White House in the fall.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats: Say that again.(laughter]
AM: Vladimir Putin—
DC: Did I hear you?
AM: Yah.
DC: Ok... That's gonna be special