Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough castigated House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) for Monday night’s vote to release a memo to the public that reportedly alleges wrongdoing in U.S. intelligence agencies.

Scarborough called the memo part of a “cynical game” targetting law enforcement for a “political purge.”

“[M]any who did read Nunes’ memo say that it falsely summarize the reality and it’s filled with all these falsehoods and these misleading conclusions all in an attempt to slur law enforcement officers that Donald Trump — I don’t know how else I should say this,” Scarborough said. “He’s targeted them for a political purge. So, this is a cynical game that Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes and anybody that empowers Devin Nunes is playing.”

The “Morning Joe” co-host equated the release of the memo to a “twisted, distorted lie” and said it serves President Donald Trump.

“So Ryan and Nunes want to release a half-truth that turns out to be a whole lie — a twisted, distorted lie,” he added. “Since Ryan thinks the public will learn the full facts, he and Nunes can skate by on their lie. They can smear the men and women of the FBI. They can spear the professionals at the Justice Department who said this would be really reckless to put out there. They can even smear distinguished FISA judges, and they can smear the entire intelligence community by extension all to take part in a sleazy political purge that we’ve been seeing unfolding before our eyes to feed the paranoid and maniacal desires of Donald Trump.”

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