The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a nomination hearing for President Trump’s pick to head the intelligence community the last week of this month, when the Senate returns from its weeklong break, according to committee chair Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
Trump has tapped former Indiana senator Dan Coats (R) to fill the post of national intelligence director, formerly held by James Clapper.
The hearing will be held “as soon as we get back,” Burr said, citing paperwork as the reason for the delay.
{mosads}“Requirements of the minority to have everything — and some of that’s out of our control, it’s FBI security, background checks,” he said, noting that Coats himself has filed everything he needs to.
Committee Democrats urged swift movement on a hearing in light of the ongoing fallout from Russian interference in the U.S. election and the recent resignation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“They were extraordinarily important before the last couple of days — they’re even more important now,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Thursday.
In the past, reports suggested that Trump was weighing dismantling the Office of the Director of National Intelligence entirely. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Trump White House is weighing assigning New York billionaire Stephen Feinberg to oversee a review of the intelligence community.
Coats, who did not seek reelection in November, was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
A former ambassador to Germany under George W. Bush, Coats served in the Senate twice — from 1989 to 1999, and again from 2011 until last year.