PHILADELPHIA — Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday morning that the intelligence community should give phony information to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.  

“I had a number of people come to me yesterday about the Logan Act, and he may have done that. He may have violated a law,” Reid said. “But you know, this is not the first time.”  

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The Logan Act bans private citizens from unauthorized negotiations with foreign governments. On Wednesday, Trump appeared to call for Russia to locate missing emails from Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state  

Reid then suggested the real estate mogul may have skirted the law in connection with his business dealings.  

“What I’ve suggested to the CIA and I’ll suggest it here. I would hope they would give him fake intelligence briefings,” Reid said. “Because they shouldn’t give him anything that means anything because you can’t trust him.”  

“So, he could have intelligence briefings, but I hope they’re fake,” he said.  

Reid then clarified that he has not made the suggestion directly to the CIA, but that he was sure they had heard what he said.  

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas reacted quickly to Reid’s assertion, saying it was “disturbing” for the minority leader to “inject politics” into intelligence briefings.  

“The system of government Harry Reid is advocating — where the intelligence apparatus provides disinformation to one party and actively supports another — does indeed exist: in Putin’s Russia, not in the United States,” he said in a statement.

Republicans earlier this month said that the criticism from FBI Director James B. Comey over Clinton’s handling classified material on a private email server when she was secretary of state should preclude her from getting intelligence briefings. But Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. denied House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s request.