GOP Rep Issa: ‘Appropriate’ for Trump to Cast Doubt on U.S. Intel Community

Monday on CNN, in reacting to coverage of President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press conference in Helsinki, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said it was “appropriate” for Trump to question the U.S. intelligence community’s assessments.

Partial transcript as follows:

RAJU: what is your reaction to the president throwing cold water on the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia was behind the interference in the U.S. elections?

ISSA: I think just last week in these very halls we saw an example of the FBI not being trustworthy. We saw the downgrading of Hillary Clinton’s criminal activity, the words being changed on Peter Strzok’s own computer. So for the president to cast doubt is not unreasonable. At the same time, we take those charges seriously and so I personally would neither rule in nor rule out the validity of a very interesting and odd-timed indictment of people who can never be brought to justice and for whom there’s even a question of how do we know? Did we use spy techniques in order to find out? Did we hack them in order to find out who they were? So I think for the president to cast doubt is appropriate.

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