Dan Coats

Dan Coats (born May 16, 1943, Jackson, Michigan, U.S.) is an American politician who served as a Republican in the U.S. Senate, representing Indiana (1989–99; 2011–17), and who later was the director of national intelligence (2017–19) in the administration of Pres. Donald Trump. Dan Coats previously was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1981–89).

Coats attended Wheaton College, from which he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1965. That year he married, and he and his wife, Marsha, later had three children. After serving in the U.S. Army (1966–68), Coats studied law at Indiana University (Juris Doctor degree, 1971), where he was associate editor of the Indiana Law Review. He then was hired by an insurance firm in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In 1976 Coats became a district representative for Dan Quayle, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. When Quayle ran for the U.S. Senate in 1980, Coats entered the race for his House seat and won. He took office the following year. After Quayle was elected vice president on the ticket with George H.W. Bush, Coats was appointed (1988) to complete his Senate term, and he took up the post in 1989. The following year Coats won a special election, and he continued to serve in the Senate until 1999. He then returned to private law practice before being named ambassador to Germany in 2001, serving in that role until 2005. He again resumed his legal career, but in 2010 he left to run for the Senate. He was elected and took office in 2011.

Coats was considered a conservative, especially on social issues. Notably, in 1993 he helped author “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy that banned openly gay men and women from serving in the military, and he later voted (2010) against its repeal. During his second term in office, Coats took a special interest in fiscal matters. He advocated the reduction of federal spending on entitlement programs and pressed for reduced tax rates on corporations and wealthy individuals. In addition, he sought to limit the power of the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2015 Coats announced that he would not seek reelection the following year. He left office in January 2017.

That month President-elect Donald Trump nominated Coats as his director of national intelligence. Coats was easily confirmed by the Senate in March and shortly thereafter took up the post. However, he often disagreed with Trump, perhaps most notably by supporting the conclusion of intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In addition, Coats offered conflicting assessments on countries such as North Korea, which he claimed would not abandon its nuclear program. Amid continued tensions with the White House, Coats stepped down in August 2019.