Kaine: Separate threat of Russian hacking from election results

Hillary Clinton’s former running mate on Thursday said the goal of investigating Russia’s alleged interference with the presidential election is not changing the outcome of the vote.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) compared the situation to the Watergate scandal, when both parties united to protect the integrity of the electoral process.  

“It was not an investigation driven because something affected the election. The 1972 election was the most one-sided in modern history,” he said at a hearing Thursday of the Senate Armed Services Committee on cyber threats to the United States.

“But it was a high moment for Congress because Congress in a bipartisan way stood for the principle that you couldn’t undertake efforts to influence an American presidential election and have there be no consequence.”

{mosads}Many supporters of President-elect Donald Trump have taken the tack that Democrats’ focus on the issue is the result of sour grapes, despite widespread Republican calls for further investigations.

Kaine noted that cyber attacks during election season were not solely focused on political parties, but on individuals and even voter rolls. 

Later in his comments, Kaine also took aim at so-called fake news and chided Trump’s pick for national security adviser, former Gen. Mike Flynn, for repeatedly drawing attention to such stories on Twitter.

“When I see an administration that has put in place as the proposed national security advisor someone who traffics in these fake stories, who retweets them and shares them, who betrays a sense of gullibility or malice — these are stories that most fourth graders would find incredible — that a national security advisor would believe them causes me great concern,” he said.

Kaine asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper if an announced upcoming report on election hacking would include a discussion of fake news. Clapper said it would.