Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine on Thursday pushed back on talks of impeaching Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton if she becomes president, stating that such speculation amounts to “defeatism” from Republicans.
{mosads}“I’ve really despaired over the last few days, seeing some of the comments when people are throwing the impeachment word around before the election has even taken place,” Kaine said in an interview with Fox News Radio.
“I mean, first it kind of suggests a little bit of defeatism, like, ‘Well, we think we’re probably going to lose.’ Second is, it also suggests a really bad view of what the role of a legislator is — same about this investigation stuff. You know, I thought legislators were supposed to legislate.”
When asked if he thinks FBI Director James Comey is attempting to influence the outcome of the presidential race, Kaine replied, “No, I don’t,” but added that Comey’s decision to send a letter to Congress announcing a new review of emails tied to the Clinton email server investigation is “puzzling.”
“I don’t think he is trying to influence the outcome of the election. I don’t question his integrity, but I do have serious questions about the judgment demonstrated by this, you know, this highly unusual letter that was so cryptic that he kind of had to do a do-over letter the next day that he put out next week,” Kaine said.
However, Clinton’s running mate said that he has little doubt that Russia is meddling with the presidential election and attempting to disrupt the democratic process.
“I would be reluctant to reach that conclusion on my own, but when you have the, pretty much, the combined weight of all our national intelligence and military agencies reaching that conclusion from watching what they’re doing with hacks into individuals, parties and state boards of elections, it is very, very clear that they are trying to do it in a way that’s unprecedented in our history,” he said.
“I think when the dust settles after this election and people go back and look at it, this will be the biggest story of this election — that a foreign government tried to get deeply involved in influencing the outcome of this election.”