House intel Dem lays out Trump's exposure in the Russia probe -- and how the president can ‘save himself’

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on Monday detailed Donald Trump’s extensive exposure in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Swalwell, who sits on the controversial House Intelligence Committee, was speaking with CNN’s Don Lemon about Mueller’s investigation, and specifically the president’s inability to find lawyers willing to join his defense team.

“There have been reports that a number of lawyers are turning down joining the president's legal team,” Lemon explained. “The president has disputed that on Twitter … saying everybody wanted to be a lawyer, in essence. what impact do you think it will have on the Russia investigation?

“The problem here is not the lawyers, it’s a flawed, very exposed client who rarely has ever met the truth,” Swalwell said. “So he should best just come clean. The best thing he could do would be to come clean with the American people, put himself in the witness chair and answer the questions of the special counsel and allow Bob Mueller to tell the world what Donald Trump’s role was in the last interference campaign.”

“I also would say that no lawyer can save somebody who has had a hard time throughout his career in being forthright and telling the truth,” Swalwell later said.

“What Donald Trump, I believe, is exposed to is that he has had a long-standing relationship with the Russians financially, that he invited them to hack Hillary clinton's e-mails and then once they did that, he cheer-leaded the hacking of those e-mails and he, I would say, emboldened further hacking by not denouncing them,” Swalwell explained.

“And then of course has continued to look the other way in what Russia has done in the world and has obstructed the investigation by firing James Comey, Sally Yates, and most recently Andy McCabe,” he continued. “So, there's a lot of exposure there and he can save himself by coming clean with the American people.”

Watch below, via CNN: