Tim Kaine Says He’s Not Worried About WikiLeaks Threat Of A ‘Surprise’ [Breaking]
Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s pick for Vice President, shrugged off concerns over an ominous tweet from WikiLeaks earlier today in which they said they had a “surprise” for him.
“We have a surprise in store for @TimKaine and @DonnaBrazile.”
But according to the Chicago Tribune, the candidate for VP said that he’s not concerned. In an interview with the Associated Press, Kaine said that he does “have a temper,” that he’s a “regular human being,” but that he doesn’t have anything to be “overly embarrassed about.”
“I would say it would not be my norm. I do have a temper so, I mean, I imagine I’ve got an email or two out there that people might find unusual.”
Kaine, along with Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile, has been taking a lot of fire from WikiLeaks lately, which has promised more than once that their unreleased emails will be damaging to him and the Clinton campaign.
The pokes at Kaine come amidst a bout of wild speculation over the situation of WikiLeaks founder and Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange after a series of odd tweets left many to suspect that a “dead man switch” had been triggered and that Assange had, in fact, been murdered. And while WikiLeaks has hastened to assure the public that Assange is all right, according to the New York Times, his internet was cut off by Ecuador (whose London embassy he is currently inhabiting) to prevent accusations of their being involved in an effort to “interfere in electoral processes” in the United States. WikiLeaks has also been quick to throw out tweets full of grandiose claims about how damaging their email leaks are to American Democrats.
Kaine, meanwhile, isn’t buying it, pointing out that thousands of his emails have already been released with no significant impact to himself or Clinton. He’s also made a habit of questioning the veracity of WikiLeaks’ information and point the finger at a possible connection between WikiLeaks and Russia. Those claims might have motivated WikiLeaks to strike back or attempt to intimidate the candidate.
While it would be impossible to authenticate every single email published by WikiLeaks, the general consensus is that the emails themselves are real, true, and accurate, but the devil is in the interpretation. WikiLeaks, and many, if not most of the voters opposed to the Democrats and the Clinton campaign consider them to be seriously damning. Democrats, meanwhile, and most of the mainstream news tend to shrug and suggest that, accurate or not, the content of the emails is, at worst, mildly embarrassing.
The problem is that with tens of thousands of emails released, it’s easy to make a claim that they contain practically anything. Unfortunately, very few voters have the time, energy, interest, or ability to comb through them looking for a smoking gun, or the lack thereof. Most are inclined to simply trust whichever story aligns with their confirmation bias.
And while both Russia and WikiLeaks have denied the charges of their connection, as Vox notes, it is practically a certainty that the hack was carried out by a Russian hacker. The emails contain a fair bit of direct evidence that the hacker, at the very least, primarily worked in Russian, and at worst, the hack could be linked directly to previous operations by Russian Intelligence.
In any case, Tim Kaine, while admitting that he’s aware he could be a prime target for a foreign power, isn’t concerned that he might be in for a “surprise” from WikiLeaks soon and says that he won’t let himself be distracted right before the election.
“I’ve been very good in my political life of not letting people throw me off my game.”
[Featured Image by Mark Wilson/Getty Images]
