Pushing back against a New York Times reporter who said the Hillary Clinton email scandal was a story now about how it affected Clinton politically, liberal Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Friday whether the real story was that "they continue to lie to you."
Jeremy Peters, a frequent MSNBC guest, said the saga now was more about how Republicans respond to the revelations about Clinton's private email server passing along classified information. Clinton has misled about the scandal for months, claiming she never sent nor received such material on her server and that her private account was permissible under the Obama administration, both of which are untrue.
Host Joe Scarborough attempted to corner Peters on confirming the severity of a federal judge saying Clinton violated government policy.
"You want me to indict and damn Hillary Clinton?" Peters asked. "I'm not going to do that."
"I just want though, reporter by reporter, reporters to come on," Scarborough said. "You've got a federal judge saying she did not follow email policy. True or false, Jeremy Peters? Reporter for the New York Times."
"That was the story from the beginning, wasn't it?" Peters asked. "That she didn't follow the protocol."
"Isn't the story now that they continue to lie to you?" Brzezinski asked.
"I think it's helpful to look at this from the perspective of an ad maker," Peters replied. "If you're a Republican ad maker, how do you turn this into an attack?"
"Because let me tell you right now the investigators for the FBI that are circulating and seeing whether she did what David Patraeus did," Scarborough said. "Which by the way, he got busted for having classified material in his possession wrongfully that was not marked."