President-elect Donald Trump has taken it up on himself to act as Russian President Vladimir Putin's "defense lawyer," instead of respecting the intelligence professionals in the United States, former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine said Thursday.
"When he is quoting Julian Assange as an authority on this, that makes me scratch my head," the Virginia senator told CNN's "New Day" co-anchor Alisyn Camerota, while giving his first national interview since he and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost their bid for the White House in November.
On Wednesday, Trump called the Democratic National Committee "so careless" over a cyber attack that released numerous scandalous emails during the presidential election, and referred to Assange's comments about Russia not being involved.
However, early Thursday, Trump laid into the "dishonest media" in another pair of tweets for reporting that he agrees with Assange. Instead, he insisted, he was just repeating what the WikiLeaks founder has said, and that he expects Americans to decide for themselves.
The tweets came after Trump came under fire not only from Democrats, but from Republicans angered over what they called his disregard for the nation's intelligence community.
Kaine said Thursday that he is on two committees, Armed Services and Foreign Relations, that receive "significant classified information," and while he can't divulge what he's learned, "those intelligence professionals that I respect have reached an unanimous conclusion that Russia engaged on cyberattacks in the presidential election, with the goal of influencing it for in favor of the election of Donald Trump.
"They have reached that conclusion and they are people that I respect."
Further, said Kaine, Trump doesn't go to his security briefings, but "I do go to mine and I know what the evidence is. If he went to his intelligence briefings, maybe he will have a different conclusion about this."
Resetting relations with Russia, he continued, should not mean that Trump should "trash American intelligence professionals."
"They are playing an important role in the fight against ISIS," said Kaine. "There's something unusual and suspicious to the way he kicks aside the intelligence community and takes the Assange-Vladimir Putin line.
"Any president of the United States should want to protect American systems from invasion or attack by the foreign government."
Also on the program, Kaine spoke about his former running mate's plans to attend Trump's inauguration with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and said he's sure they will experience "mixed emotions."
"I lived as a young man in a military dictatorship in Honduras, where people didn't get to pick their leaders, and there wasn't a transfer of power, but I learned how wonderful it is when we have this transition," said Kaine.
"Hillary Clinton is a great lover of our country and traditions and that's why she and her husband are going to be here."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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