As the nation's next director of intelligence, Dan Coats will be thrown almost immediately into a heated Capitol Hill debate over whether to revise powerful surveillance program. | Getty Senate approves Coats as new spy chief

The full Senate on Wednesday easily confirmed former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats as the nation's next director of national intelligence.

Lawmakers voted 85-12 for their former colleague, who will become the fifth DNI since the office was created in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Coats will oversee the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies, which gather information on threats around the globe.


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called Coats "a leader on issues regarding our national security and the intelligence community" during his time in Congress.

"It goes without saying that the president made an excellent choice," he added.

Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he expected Coats to "speak truth to power" for an intelligence community that President Donald Trump has repeatedly assailed for leaking damaging information.

But a small contingent of left-wing Democrats — including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Ron Wyden of Oregon — and libertarian-leaning Republicans — such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — dissented on Coats' nomination.

Coats will take the helm of an office that Trump's team has reportedly considered scaling back or rearranging.

And almost immediately, Coats will be thrown into a heated Capitol Hill debate over whether to revise powerful surveillance programs.

This debate represented the only possible hold-up for Coats' untroubled confirmation.

Hours before the vote, Wyden took to the chamber floor to remind his colleagues that Coats has not yet fully committed to getting Congress an estimate on the number of Americans who have had their communications intercepted through these powerful spying tools, which are meant to spy on foreign targets.

The programs — authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — expire at the end of the year. Surveillance critics like Wyden are trying to use the deadline to revise the laws.

The data on Americans swept up through 702 programs could be key to that effort.

“You cannot have that debate ... unless you know the impact of Section 702 of that bill on the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans,” Wyden said, reprising arguments he made during Coats' confirmation hearing and in a follow-up letter last week.

The intelligence community is also grappling with fallout from Trump's accusation that former President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap on Trump Tower — the candidate's campaign headquarters.

While the White House hasn't offered any evidence to support the charge, press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday said Trump is "extremely confident" that the allegations, broadly speaking, will be proved true.

However, earlier on Wednesday, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes — who served on the Trump transition team's executive committee — said he doesn't believe "there was an actual tap of Trump Tower."

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