President Donald Trump's top spy chief said "I don't know" what happened during a one-on-one meeting between the president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday.
Responding to a question at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Friday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats also said he would not have recommended meeting with the Russian president alone.
"I would have suggested a different way, but that's not my role, and it is what it is," Coats said.
Asked why he put out a statement defending the intelligence community just hours after Trump appeared to undermine U.S. conclusions Russia meddled in the 2016 election, Coats said, "I was just doing my job."
Russian officials have said progress was made in Helsinki on a number of key issues ranging from arms reduction to Syria, though there is no known recording of the one-on-one meeting to refer back to.
Coats said he told the president early in his tenure last year that his job at times is to "bring news that you don't want to hear," adding the intelligence community strives to produce unvarnished, non-politicized reports. He said Russia seeks to undermine basic U.S. values and "wreak havoc" over the elections process.
"We need to call them out on that," Coats said.
Asked what he tells his employees in the intelligence community when the president appears to question their work, Coats said "We are professionals, we are here to provide professional service to our government. Just do your jobs."
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