House GOPer: Prisoner Exchange For Bergdahl ‘Dangerous’

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., right, accompanied by the committee's ranking member Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., inform reporters about proposed changes to the National Secu... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., right, accompanied by the committee's ranking member Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., inform reporters about proposed changes to the National Security Agency’s program of sweeping up and storing vast amounts of data on Americans' phone calls, Tuesday, March 25, 2014, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Details of the government's secret phone records collection program were disclosed last year by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden. Privacy advocates were outraged to learn that the government was holding onto phone records of innocent Americans for up to five years. Obama promised to make changes to the program in an effort to win back public support. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) on Sunday warned that the U.S. decision to negotiate for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl could give Al Qaeda the wrong idea that the U.S. is willing to negotiate with them for hostages.

“So many of us are concerned about what really is a break with U.S. policy of not negotiating with terrorists,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union, according to The Hill.

“We have now set a price,” Rogers continued. “If you negotiate here, you’ve sent a message to every Al Qaeda group in the world – by the way, some who are holding U.S. hostages today – that there is some value now in that hostage in a way that they didn’t have before. That is dangerous.”

Rogers said that “the No. 1 way Al Qaeda raises money” is by kidnapping.

National security adviser Susan Rice told CNN’s Candy Crowley that she wouldn’t characterize Bergdahl’s release as negotiating with terrorists.

“When we are in battles with terrorists, and the terrorists take an American prisoner, that prisoner is still a U.S. serviceman or woman. We still have a sacred obligation to bring that person back,” Rice said.

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: