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Some reading I've done including Gina's link, I don't see a problem. Please enlighten?

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Harward turned it down. smart man.

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He turned down the job.

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The New York Times reported Wednesday that Trump intends to have New York billionaire Stephen Feinberg review U.S. intelligence agencies. The story reported that Coats is "especially angry" and sees the review as an attempt by Trump aide Stephen Bannon and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner "to sideline him before he is even confirmed, according to current and former officials."

The Times story, by James Risen and Matthew Rosenberg, said that Coats "believes the review would impinge on a central part of his role as the director of national intelligence and fears that if Mr. Feinberg were working at the White House, he could quickly become a dominant voice on intelligence matters."

http://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/indiana/Hearing-set-as-Trump-maint ains-Coats--confirmation-is-stalled-17834245

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He turned down the job.

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Disappointing, but maybe better off for him.


Trump is still missing DNI nominee Dan Coats. He hasn't had a hearing yet. Unsure if that is paperwork related, back ground related, or what. Now the Senate is going on a recess. The parties just had a "retreats" and now go on recess. **** Washington already. How many days do those bums actually work?

Did come across this:

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The New York Times reported Wednesday that Trump intends to have New York billionaire Stephen Feinberg review U.S. intelligence agencies. The story reported that Coats is "especially angry" and sees the review as an attempt by Trump aide Stephen Bannon and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner "to sideline him before he is even confirmed, according to current and former officials."

The Times story, by James Risen and Matthew Rosenberg, said that Coats "believes the review would impinge on a central part of his role as the director of national intelligence and fears that if Mr. Feinberg were working at the White House, he could quickly become a dominant voice on intelligence matters."

http://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/indiana/Hearing-set-as-Trump-maint ains-Coats--confirmation-is-stalled-17834245

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Where's The Director Of National Intelligence?
By Mary Louise Kelly • 19 hours ago


Originally published on February 16, 2017 5:49 pm

Updated at 5:10 p.m. ET

Call it the case of the mysterious moving confirmation hearing.

Donald Trump nominated Dan Coats to the nation's top intelligence post back on Jan. 7, when Trump was still president-elect and Coats — an Indiana Republican — was a sitting senator.

But today — nearly four weeks into the Trump administration — there's still no firm date on the calendar for the Senate confirmation hearing for the director of national intelligence nominee.

Capitol Hill aides first told NPR that the confirmation hearing was slated for early February, then said the target date might shift to this week. Today, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told reporters he is aiming for the last week of February. Burr chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, which runs the process for intelligence posts.

The holdup prompts the question: Might Coats be getting cold feet?

Not the case, according to Burr, who blamed slow paperwork for the holdup.

"Requirements of the minority to have everything — and some of that's out of our control, it's FBI security, background checks," he said. It's worth noting that Coats already holds a security clearance, owing to his service as a member of both the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

It's also worth noting that President Trump is currently running national security and foreign policy without the benefit of guidance from either a permanent national security adviser or a permanent U.S. intelligence chief.

(Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, on Monday, citing a breakdown in trust over Flynn's contacts with Russia and how Flynn subsequently portrayed those contacts to Vice President Pence. Over at the office of the DNI, CIA veteran Michael Dempsey has been serving as acting director since Jan. 20.)

The intelligence community has clashed with the president, following Trump's earlier dismissal of the consensus of all 17 U.S. spy agencies that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Three agencies — the CIA, the NSA and the FBI — concluded that Russia worked to tip the vote to Trump.

Since then, the feud has only intensified after press reports that included what Trump called leaks from inside the intelligence services.

In public, Trump has praised Coats. At a White House news conference on Thursday, he called the former senator a "brilliant guy, [a] great guy."

Trump told reporters he is irked by the delay in getting his DNI installed. Coats is "one of the most respected men in the Senate," he said, adding, "He can't get approved. How do you not approve him?"

But in private, Trump and his advisers have questioned the value of the DNI post and signaled that they believe the intelligence bureaucracy might benefit from streamlining. And on Thursday, the New York Times reported that Trump plans to assign New York billionaire Stephen Feinberg to lead a review of the intelligence community, from inside the White House.

It's not clear how that might affect the flow of information between spy agencies and the president, or whether introducing Feinberg into the mix might be an attempt to sideline current intelligence leaders.

The Times report suggested Coats is not pleased about the prospect of Feinberg's assignment or the potential competition Feinberg might represent.

"Mr. Coats is especially angry at what he sees as a move by [Trump aides Stephen Bannon and Jared Kushner] to sideline him before he is even confirmed, according to current and former officials," reporters James Risen and Matthew Rosenberg wrote.

At his White House press conference Thursday, Trump played down the prospect of Feinberg joining the White House.

"He's offered his services and you know, it's something we may take advantage of," Trump said. "But I don't think [we will] need that at all because of the fact that, you know, I think that we are gonna be able to straighten it out very easily on its own."

Even as that story is playing out, the road appears to be clear for Coats whenever he does appear before his former colleagues.

"I know of no obstacle to [Coats] being confirmed," says Jane Harman, the California Democrat and former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. "Dan Coats is a former member [of Congress] who is popular with both sides — certainly popular with me.

"We worked together when he was on the Senate Intelligence Committee and we worked together when he was U.S. ambassador to Germany," Harman, who now runs the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, told NPR. "He is skilled, modest and gets along with everybody."

The question now is, when might Coats get to apply those skills to the top job in U.S. intelligence?
http://gpbnews.org/post/amid-all-intrigue-wheres-director-national-intellig ence

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A friend of Harward's said he was reluctant to take the job because the White House seems so chaotic. Harward called the offer a "s*** sandwich," the friend said.

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Maybe this has already been mentioned, but it seems Trump or possibly someone closet to him seems hell bent on picking the staff for the National Security Adviser and this is what's leading to the recent candidates turning down the position.

Anyone who knows or has worked in government understands that it's the staff who actually do the work of the agency and thus anyone taking the highest position within said dept. want the ability to hire their own staff. Who wouldn't?

The fact that Trump or someone very close to him feels the need to micro-manage people who are obviously very bright and knowledgeable is very telling about the paranoia and delusions of grandeur certain elements within Trump's close circle posses.

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This whole thing seems to be a few possibilities...

A - Pure populism combined with optimism and pure leadership qualities in Donald Trump.
B - Pure populism combined with a lot of Americans sick of the left and liberals, and Hillary is just not that likeable and never will be, the last Rockefeller Republican, in the end belonging to a party of no one.
C - A carefully crafted coup orchestrated by Russia to draw the world into a highly profitable conventional WWIII.
D - Pure right place right time populism elects a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing.

I'm going with D.

You won. You beat her. Jobs and the economy. Future for us and our children. You're the President. Act like it. What's the plan?

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