Hours after the House Intelligence Committee voted — along party lines — to release the memo written by committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and his staff, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appeared on CNN to make the case that this was a reckless action. And things got pretty tense between her and anchor Chris Cuomo.

Playing devil’s advocate, Cuomo continued to present the Republicans’ case for making the four-page document public. After Pelosi claimed the memo was a “total misrepresentation” and that Democrats have said nothing should be put out until reviewed and redacted by the intelligence community, Cuomo provided an explanation from the GOP.

“They say they don’t want the DOJ to look at it because they are part of their concerns about how things were done during the campaign,” Cuomo noted.

“The DOJ is only one part of the intelligence community — the intelligence community is vast,” the congresswoman responded. “It’s the CIA, DNI, national defense. Everybody has their element of it, and sources in that that must be protected. Not only that, I can’t even reference some words that are in it because that would be a violation of the confidentiality, the classified nature.”

Over the next few minutes, the two bantered over whether President Donald Trump would approve the memo’s release and if the American people should see what’s in the document, with Pelosi repeatedly stating that the memo wasn’t true. At one point, Cuomo stated that the FBI director has recently seen the document and didn’t immediately come out and say not to release it.

“Let me just say this with all due respect,” Pelosi shot back. “You really don’t know what you’re talking about right now.”

“But did Christopher Wray look at it or no?” the anchor asked.

“I can’t say whether he did or not,” the Democratic leader said, adding that the Justice Department has already said not to release it.

Pelosi would continue to battle with Cuomo, explaining time and time again that the memo was a “distraction” due to the Republicans’ inability to govern properly.

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

[image via NBC News]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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