Dan Coats - Between U.S. Senate Tenures

Between U.S. Senate Tenures

Coats worked as Special Counsel member in the firm Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand in 2000 and 2001.

In 2001, Coats was reportedly one of George W. Bush’s top choices to be Defense Secretary, a job eventually given to Donald Rumsfeld, who had previously served as United States Secretary of Defense.

From August 15, 2001 to February 28, 2005, Coats was the United States Ambassador to Germany. As ambassador during the lead up to the Iraq war, he pressured the German government not to oppose the war, threatening worsened US relations with Germany. As Ambassador he also played a critical role in establishing robust relations with then opposition leader Angela Merkel and in the construction of a new United States Embassy in the heart of Berlin next to the Brandenburg Gate.

In 2005, Coats drew attention when he was chosen by President George W. Bush to shepherd Harriet Miers' failed nomination to the Supreme Court through the Senate. Echoing Senator Roman Hruska's famous 1970 speech in defense of Harrold Carswell, Coats said to CNN regarding the nomination: "If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole."

In 2007, Coats served as co-chairman of a team of lobbyists for Cooper Industries, a Texas corporation that moved its principal place of business to Bermuda, where it would not be liable for U.S. taxes. He successfully blocked Senate legislation that would have prevented a tax loophole, worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Cooper Industries.

The NYT also reported that Coats was co-chairman of the Washington government relations office of King & Spalding, with a salary of $603,609.