Daniel Ray "Dan" Coats (born 16 May 1943) was the US Director of National Intelligence from 16 March 2017 to 15 August 2019, succeeding Mike Dempsey and preceding John Lee Ratcliffe. Coats previously served as US Senator from Indiana (R) from 3 January 1989 to 3 January 1999 (succeeding Dan Quayle and preceding Evan Bayh) and from 3 January 2011 to 3 January 2017 (succeeding Bayh and preceding Todd Young and a member of the US House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th district from 3 January 1981 to 3 January 1989, succeeding Quayle and preceding Jill Long.
Biography[]
Daniel Ray Coats was born in Jackson, Michigan in 1943, and he graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois and Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. Coats served in the US Army as a staff sergeant from 1966 to 1968, and he was elected to the US House of Representatives as a member of the Republican Party on 3 January 1981, serving four terms before being elected to the US Senate. He served the remained of Dan Quayle's term and served until 1999, when he retired. During the 1990s, Coats supported gun control bills, but he opposed expanded background checks in 2013. Coats was also an opponent of same-sex marriage, an author of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and advocated punishing Russia for its March 2014 annexation of Crimea. From 2001 to 2005, he served as ambassador to Germany, and he then worked as a lobbyist in Washington, DC. In 2011, he was re-elected to his old senate seat, succeeding the retired Evan Bayh. On 5 January 2017, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he had nominated Coats to be the new Director of National Intelligence, and he was sworn in on 16 March 2017. On 28 July 2019, Trump announced that Coats would step down on 15 August, the result of his disagreements with Trump about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election as well as his policies on North Korea and Iran.