This article originally appeared on time.com.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid implored intelligence officials tasked with giving classified briefings to Donald Trump during the presidential campaign not to actually divulge important information.
“How would the CIA and the other intelligence agencies brief this guy? How could they do that? I would suggest to the intelligence agencies, if you’re forced to brief this guy, don’t tell him anything, just fake it, because this man is dangerous,” Reid told the Huffington Post. “Fake it, pretend you’re doing a briefing, but you can’t give the guy any information.”
Reid said Trump’s comments encouraging Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton’s emails were “much worse than Watergate.”
This isn’t the first time Reid has been outspoken in targeting a Republican presidential nominee. In 2012, he famously speculated on the Senate floor that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid any taxes in 10 years.
The topic of withholding confidential briefings has come up before during this presidential campaign. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan formally requested that Clinton not receive classified information from the government while she’s a candidate. His request came after FBI Director James Comey criticized Clinton and her aides for being “extremely careless” in handling classified information while she used a private email server as Secretary of State.
