Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) said Thursday if Democrats win back Congress in the 2018 midterms, they'll be forced to investigate not only Russian meddling in the 2016 election but the 2018 one as well because of Republicans inviting more interference.
"My fear is that we will go into this upcoming election inviting Russia to interfere again, and that if Democrats win the majority, we will be charged not only with investigating the interference in the 2016 election, but we will also have to investigate the interference that the Republicans have invited and have given a green light to in this upcoming election," Swalwell said on "The Rachel Maddow Show."
House Republicans on the Intelligence Committee wrapped up their year-long investigation of the 2016 election on Monday, agreeing with the intelligence community's assessment that the Kremlin interfered but breaking with it by saying the interference wasn't done to benefit Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Republicans also concluded there was no collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians.
Swalwell called the Republican investigation "a sham" that buried evidence of collusion. He said earlier in the interview he had seen evidence that Trump's organization sought to do business with a sanctioned Russian bank, although he couldn't say which one.
"If you have what you're describing here as basically direct evidence that the Trump organization as an American business was negotiating with a sanctioned Russian bank ... that sounds to me like illegal behavior," Maddow said. "Is there a question of whether or not something like that should be directly referred to the Justice Department, or is there some other way evidence like that should be handled as a law enforcement matter?"
Swalwell replied he was heartened to see that special counsel Robert Mueller had issued a subpoena for Trump Organization documents about Russia and called for the publication of Intelligence Committee transcripts.
"The bigger issue is we have done a great disservice by ending this investigation in such an inaccurate and incomplete fashion," he said.