Darrell Issa: Indicting 12 Russian hackers was a ‘big mistake’

Rep. Darrell Issa condemned the Justice Department Tuesday, arguing its decision to indict 12 Russians is dangerous to the intelligence community.

Mr. Issa, California Republican, explained during an interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” that the announcement actually risked the intelligence community’s capabilities.

“This is a bad policy from an indictment standpoint,” he said, “It’s also bad by exposing what we know or don’t know about our adversaries around the world that are spying on us. So on both levels, it’s a big mistake.”

He explained that the U.S. could name the indicted Russians or others involved in meddling with the 2016 election, but that would expose our sources and methods used in investigations.

Mr. Issa, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, explained that when CIA operatives break laws in other countries, the U.S. does not extradite them.

“When CIA equivalents do these things in other countries, there’s no expectation that indictment is appropriate,” he said.

Mr. Issa agreed with National Review’s Andrew McCarthy’s argument that by formally accusing the Russians, but not being able to bring them to court, due process requires that they are presumed innocent.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein noted during his announcement that all mentioned in the indictment are indeed innocent until prove guilty in a court of law.

“So this was a staged event,” Mr. Issa said, “The American people were influenced by seeing this and taking that next step of ’this must be real.’ “