Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.) said on Monday that reopening investigations around Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Uranium One deal helps Russia create "further discord" in the United States.
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked Swalwell what his take was on Republicans taking steps to address the former Democratic presidential candidate's activities, just as speculation was growing that special counsel Robert Mueller was prepared to issue indictments in the Russia investigation.
"Well it helps the Russians," Swalwell said. "Because the Russians like to see further discord in our country, and if we’re not doing all we can to make sure that we’re not going to prevent a future attack, and we’re going back in time and reopening, you know, cases around emails or uranium deals, that disunity allows them to attack us again."
The Democratic representative's solution to "fix the mess that we’re in" would be to have an independent bipartisan commission in conjunction with pursuing the Russian meddling and collusion investigation in the House Intelligence Committee.
Mitchell also asked Swalwell what his reaction was to Republicans in the House Intelligence Committee wanting to investigate the Uranium One deal in respect to possible corruption.
"Well it doesn’t have to be this way," Swalwell said, but Mitchell pushed him on whether he thought the uranium connection should be investigated.
"If there are issues that, you know, haven’t been explored by the intelligence committee, sure," Swalwell said. "But not at the expense of this [Russian meddling and collusion] investigation."
Swalwell said he feels the Republicans are looking to investigate the uranium deal issue ahead of the Russian collusion investigation.
The Democratic congressman pointed out that focusing on what Americans care about "when it comes to the freedom to choose in our democracy," would be a good case for Democrats to win back the majority in 2018.