Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) says the Democrats' hacked emails "were factual and thus...it did not hurt the American people to have more factual information available to them." (AP File Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) says he never doubted that the Russians hacked into Democrats' email systems.

"What I have said is that I don't care who provided us those e-mails," Rohrabacher told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Monday. "The e-mails were factual, and thus the American people, it did not hurt the American people to have more factual information available to them.

"This is just a frantic effort to try to discredit an election because the American people rejected the liberal left effort. This is -- the massive campaign against Trump. And the media cannot accept that the people have rejected them."

Mitchell told the conservative congressman that the "issue is interference" and whether the Russian hacking requires stronger retaliation than the Obama administration has provided.

"Let me just say again, if people are giving the American people more information, why are you so upset about it?" Rohrabacher asked.

Because it's stolen information, Mitchell responded.

Rohrabacher insisted that the hacking did not affect the outcome of the election, although it might have if the information was "untruthful."

"By the way," Rohrabacher continued, "we know now that Teddy Kennedy went to Moscow in 1984, met with the head of the KGB, and asked if we could arrange some kind of an event that would dislodge Reagan's support in the upcoming election. Now that was treason."

Rohrabacher said the WikiLeaks email dumps were "just the American people getting more information."

Mitchell asked Rohrabacher how he'd like it if the Russians hacked his emails and released them. "Should anyone have this stolen information put out for everyone in the world to see?" she asked.

"Well, for one thing, what we need to do is focus on e-mail security. But when you're a public official, you know that you are the target of such hacking," Rohrabacher said. "That's number one. And when we are talking about this particular case, let's figure out now, what is worse? Hillary destroyed e-mails that were under subpoena, and she destroyed them. What's worse? That's worse (than) hacking in and giving us those e-mails? No.

"The destruction of the e-mails by Hillary was a far worse crime against the American people. She's trying to keep information from the American people. And if the Russians are, whoever it was hacked into that system and gave the American people that information that Hillary had tried to destroy, more power to whoever."

Mitchell defended Clinton, saying she had the right, under State Department rules, to decide what is private and what is personal.

"She destroyed them to keep information from the American people, right," Rohrabacher responded. "She destroyed them so we wouldn't know. And so the fact is, now we are being upset by the people who actually gave the information to the American people. No, those e-mails were under subpoena and she destroyed them so that we wouldn't know the facts. And if they did hacked to give us the information, the American people deserve to have that information."

Mitchell said emails from Clinton's private server are completely separate from Russian hacks into the emails produced by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta.

(There is no evidence that the Russians hacked Clinton's private email server. WikiLeaks posted a searchable database of all the Clinton emails produced by the State Department under Freedom of Information Act requests.)

But Rohrabacher insisted it's the "same issue."

"You have someone destroyed evidence and running for office, and you've got -- and they don't expect that their e-mails then can be hacked into and the American people are not going to get to know what she destroyed? That's the real issue here."