Spy chief Dan Coats had no idea Trump invited Putin to the White House

If you follow White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Twitter and saw her Thursday afternoon post announcing the Trump administration has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to D.C. this fall, then you were briefly more informed about the matter than Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Coats found out about the invite during an interview with NBC News' Andrea Mitchell at the Aspen Security Forum. "Say that again?" he asked, laughing uncomfortably. Mitchell repeated herself and Coats chuckled again, exhaled, and said, "That's gonna be special." Coats later stated that "based on my reaction, I wasn't aware of that."

Coats also said he doesn't know what happened during President Trump's one-on-one meeting with Putin Monday in Helsinki, and had Trump asked him "how that ought to be conducted, I would have suggested a different way, but that's not my role. That's not my job. So it is what it is."

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