Theory: Turn- [COATS] ??
Insightful article (in the Fake News sort of way) from leftist propaganda outlet extraordinaire, Vanity Fair (5/31/2018) about VP Pence and his close "fren-ship" w/ former Indiana Senator, Dan Coates – the IN Connextion.
Article implies that the VP recommended Coates to POTUS to be a trusted DNI, and that Coates " reluctantly accepted":
" Two years before Pence became vice president, he and his friend Dan Coats, then an Indiana senator and now Trump’s director of national intelligence, talked privately about their political futures. Pence was weighing whether to run for governor for a second term or to seek the presidency in 2016, and Coats was trying to decide whether to run for re-election to the Senate. “We talked about the future and where God might lead each of us,” Coats recalled. “We prayed that God would be clear, and I think I raised the question that we should pray for clarity, not for what we want but clarity for what God would want.” Coats went on to reluctantly accept Trump’s offer to head the intelligence community, but only after Pence repeatedly asked him to take the job…
Unsurprisingly, Bush, the first incumbent V.P. to win the presidency since Van Buren in 1836, is the vice president Pence most admires. (Bush and Pence met at the Super Bowl in Houston last year, where, according to Bush’s spokesman Jim McGrath, “the conversation did not get too deep.”) Yet Pence and his idol are two very different men working for two very different presidents. " https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/can-mike-pence-survive-the-man-who-saved-him
Secondly, note how Coates in his recent testimony before Senate Intel Committee seemed to be trying to stir up a " US sovereign credit downgrade scare" for the purpose of shaking up the ever-confident US markets:
" Speaking to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Coats said the nation's debt, up to $20.7 trillion and likely to escalate due to recently passed fiscal measures in Congress, must be taken seriously. "The failure to address our long-term fiscal situation has increased the national debt to over $20 trillion and growing," he said during a broader hearing over dangers posed to the U.S. "This situation is unsustainable as I think we all know, and represents a dire threat to our economic and national security." https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/13/us-security-chief-calls-national-debt-a-dire-threat.html
Thirdly, didn't realize that Coats was the US Ambassador to Germany during the 9/11 attacks??
" So now we have a sitting president who cries wolf, who spills intelligence like a sieve, telling the murderous Philippine President Duerte that two American submarines are sitting off the coast of North Korea (pssst, Mr. President, loose lips sink ships), and his web is tangling two stalwart Hoosier Republicans, Vice President Pence and Director of National Security Dan Coats.
That Pence and Coats were brought into the undisciplined Trump’s inner sanctum was to be greeted with breaths of relief by many Republicans and patriots. Pence, because he knew the inner workings of an inert Congress, and Coats as a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who served as ambassador to Germany during the Sept. 11 terror attack era. Both were seen as adults who would keep the infant president within the guardrails. "
https://howeypolitics.com/Content/Columns/Columns/Article/Brian-Howey-O-Coats-and-Pence-at-the-web-of-deception/10/20/15325
Conclusion: Pence's deep/ long term alliance w/ Coates is highly dasting– the swampy plot possibilities do thicken.