The Washington Post editorial board criticized Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for his actions regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) memo and accused him of tarnishing Congress, in a Thursday op-ed.

“Discrediting law enforcement is the memo’s transparent purpose and why it has been embraced by President Trump,” the article reads. “Written mainly by the staff of Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the loose-cannon chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the memo reportedly makes the case that the FBI abused spying authorities as it sought permission to surveil a former Trump adviser.”

The article cited Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California and a separate op-ed he wrote for WaPo, where the congressman claims Nunes “cherry-picks facts, ignores others and smears the FBI and the Justice Department.”

The editorial board wrote they are “not in the business of opposing the release of information of potential public value.”

“But if the Nunes memo were truly about fair congressional oversight of law enforcement, as Mr. Ryan claims, Republicans would allow the simultaneous release of a Democratic memo on the same subject,” WaPo claims. They accused Ryan and Nunes of trying to wreak havoc on the Russia probe and discredit the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and also criticized House Republicans for turning their back on the intelligence community.

“Mr. Ryan bears full responsibility for the deterioration of congressional oversight of intelligence operations,” WaPo’s editorial board wrote. “Once a bipartisan responsibility that lawmakers treated soberly — as they still do in the Senate — oversight under Mr. Nunes has become another front in Mr. Trump’s assault on the law enforcement institutions investigating the president and his associates. House Republicans are poisoning the committee’s relationship with the intelligence community and distracting from real issues demanding attention.”

The article mentions Russian election interference and assumes a “hostile foreign government” is meddling in the U.S.’s voting system. They also predict the Russians will try to interfere in upcoming midterms.

“In all the noise around the memo, it is easy to lose sight of the scary truth that a hostile foreign government attempted to influence the 2016 election and shows every intention of trying again this year,” the board wrote. “You’d think Mr. Nunes’s committee would be alarmed by this threat to American democracy. Instead, Mr. Nunes, with Mr. Ryan’s aid and comfort, is helping Mr. Trump impede an investigation into these very issues. It is sad to see the speaker allow the House to be tarnished in this way.”

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