Dan Coats to step down as White House's top intelligence adviser

The U.S. director of National Intelligence (DNI) will leave his post next month, President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday night.

In this file photo taken on February 13, 2018 Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies on worldwide threats during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. [Photo: VCG]

The incumbent director Dan Coats will leave office on Aug. 15, and an acting director will serve in the interim, said Trump.

Trump said he will nominate Republican John Ratcliffe, a U.S. Representative of Texas State, as the new DNI. The nomination needs to be approved by the Senate.

United States Representative John Ratcliffe (Republican of Texas) [File photo: CNP via ZUMA Wire via IC/Stefani Reynolds]

The DNI serves as the principal intelligence adviser to the White House, and heads the U.S. Intelligence Community, a federation of 17 federal intelligence agencies from the civilian and military sectors. The role was created in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 in order to prevent further intelligence failures.

Trump's announcement came four days after Robert Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee, when Ratcliffe, a frequent Trump defender, fiercely questioned the former special counsel over his two-year investigation into the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and Trump's possible obstruction of justice.

U.S. officials including Coats and Mueller repeatedly warned about the likelihood of foreign interference in the 2020 presidential elections. Given such worries, Coats announced on Friday the creation of the Election Threats Executive, a new, senior-level position within the Intelligence Community to coordinate election security.

The new role as well as the re-authorization of Section 702 are among the measures the intelligence sector had made to protect the country, Coats said in his resignation letter to Trump.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the U.S. government to intercept the electronic communication of foreigners, which has long been criticized by civil rights advocates.

Coats was sworn in as the fifth DNI in March 2017, and later at times appeared to be at odds with Trump over policy and intelligence issues, including the Russia probe.

He disclosed to Mueller's investigators how Trump had tried in March 2017 to talk him into delivering a public statement to deny any link between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Coats told the president that the DNI "has nothing to do with investigations and it was not his role to make a public statement on the Russia investigation," Mueller's report said.

In a February testimony to Congress as part of an annual national intelligence assessment, Coats cast doubt on the prospects of Trump's diplomatic engagement with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) over denuclearization.

In December, Coats said he was "deeply saddened" when Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned in protest of Trump's foreign policy, including the decision to withdraw American troops from Syria.

Coats had been among the last of the seasoned policy advisers who had stood with Trump since his 2016 victory but the president grew tired of him as he gained more personal confidence in the Oval Office, the Associated Press quoted U.S. officials as saying.