Advice
Dan Coats, seventy-five, has been in public service his entire adult life. He served in the Army right out of college, followed by law school. He went to work for Congressman Dan Quayle in 1976, and ran and won Quayle’s vacant seat in 1980. A Congressman until 1989, he then ran for the Senate, and served twice, first until 1999, then a second term from 2011 to last year. In between he served as President Bush’s ambassador to Germany.
He now serves President Trump as the Cabinet level Director of National Intelligence. The DNI is the chief of the United States intelligence gathering agencies and heads the sixteen-member US Intelligence Community. He, along with National Security Advisor John Bolton, is a key advisor to the President on intelligence matters, and responsible for the President’s daily intelligence brief.
Coats with his vast government experience is considered one of the “veterans” in the White House, along with Chief of Staff John Kelly and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. I intend no disrespect by the term “veteran;” it’s simply that these Presidential advisors are among the most experienced in a White House where few, including the President, have government or political expertise.
The President of the United States is under no obligation to listen to his advisors. They are not elected by the people: only the President has placed his name on the national ballot. They serve, “…at the pleasure of the President.” There is a famous Abraham Lincoln story, where at a cabinet meeting discussing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln took a vote. The “vote” was the entire cabinet against the Proclamation, “nay,” and Lincoln for it, “aye.” The “aye’s” have it was Lincoln’s response.
But we would hope that any leader would try to get the best advice available before making a momentous decision. Lincoln may have gone against his cabinet’s advice, but he asked their views. Particularly with the current President, who’s skill sets are in business and finance rather than the nuances of foreign policy, we hope he would turn to the “old hands” he has chosen.
Donald Trump had a very difficult week as President. His meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday followed a rough NATO meeting. As tough as Mr. Trump was on the NATO leaders, our allies, he appeared weak and vacillating in front of the Russian leader. He agreed that Putin was right and the US Intelligence agencies were wrong about Russian involvement in the 2016 election, and he seriously considered turning former US diplomats over to Russia for questioning. It is unknown what informal agreements he made during his two-hour private discussion with Putin. When he returned to the US, he spent the next few days trying to put out the fires he started.
After this fiasco, it would be reasonable for the President to regroup, get advice from his counselors, and prepare a new strategy. He obviously did not.
Over the past few years, it has become tradition for the US leaders of national security to meet with reporters, industry, and others at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado. This serves as a way to informally communicate US intelligence goals, and as a think-tank for future choices. US intelligence leaders often go, both to get their ideas out, and also to make informal contacts with industry and the media. And, Aspen is nice this time of year.
Former leaders this year include Michael Chertoff (Homeland Security), Tony Blinken and Wendy Sherman (State Department), and John McLaughlin (CIA). Current serving leaders include Vincent Brooks (US Forces Commander, Korea), Mark Esper (Army Secretary), and Adam Schiff (US Congress). The “headliners” from the Trump Administration were: Director Coats, FBI Director Chris Wray, and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Dan Coats was on the hot seat. He had made it clear that the US Intelligence Agencies stood by their conclusion that Russia had attacked the US electoral system in 2016, despite the President’s denial in Helsinki. As Mr. Trump tried to walk back his statement on Tuesday and Wednesday, he and Coats supposedly communicated about the conflicting views. Trump tried to agree with the Intelligence conclusion, though he was unable to make that firm commitment in public.
On Thursday, in a public interview with veteran NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, Coats made it clear that his current job “wasn’t fun.” It was a huge challenge, one that he gave him great satisfaction, he said. The DNI allowed him to serve his country, and try to accomplish the daily mission of keeping us safe.
It was with utter surprise then that the DNI was informed by Mitchell of the Trump Administration invitation to Vladimir Putin to meet in Washington in the fall. His reaction was clear: he was completely in the dark about the plan.
President Trump doesn’t have to take anyone’s advice. He has made a reputation of leading with “his gut,” and it told him to get the Putin invitation out in the middle of the Coats’ interview. But would it be too much for him to at least get the opinions of the leaders he chose for their wisdom? In the highest stakes game of international relations, there is nothing as dangerous as an “all-knowing rookie,” especially one who refuses to even ask.
It made for another bad day for the President.
