Asked why he issued that statement in response to Trump's siding with Putin in Helsinki, DNI Dan Coats says: "I was just doing my job...I believed I needed to correct the record...I wish he had made a different statement but I think that, now, has been clarified." #AspenSecurity
More Coats: "The very pillar of democracy is the ability to have confidence that your leaders were elected legitimately." #AspenSecurity
Coats on Trump/Putin private meeting: "I don't know what happened in that meeting...I would've suggested [it be done] a different way, but that's not my call." Coats adds that "that risk is always there," when asked whether the Russians may have recorded the meeting.
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JUST IN: DOJ's Stephen Boyd has sent a letter to @DevinNunes saying release of *the memo* without review by DOJ/FBI would be "extraordinarily reckless." Says the memo purports to be based on "classified source materials that neither you nor most of" the committee "have seen."
Boyd also says in the letter that the release of the memo could violate an agreement that DOJ/FBI struck with Paul Ryan to share classified material with the House Intel committee
More DOJ: "We do not understand why the Committee would possibly seek to disclose classified and law enforcement sensitive information without first consulting with the relevant members of the intelligence community."