Fail: Clinton Campaign Goes After Daily Beast For Kaine/Clinton Story; Kaine Ends Up Validating It

Matt Vespa | August 18, 2016 2:45 PM

Well, an awkward situation was just compounded after the Clinton campaign tried to discredit a story from The Daily Beast showing that back in 2002, then-Virginia Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine thought that President Bill Clinton should’ve resigned due to the Lewinsky sex scandal. He made the remarks in connection to the drama within Virginia’s legislature, which was grappling with a sexual harassment allegation against then-Speaker of the House of Delegates Vance Wilkins. Many were calling on Wilkins to resign, Kaine included, which is where this quote from the June 8, 2002 edition of The Washington Post comes into play, tying it with Clinton’s White House tryst: “If the allegations are true, he [Clinton] ought to resign.”

Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast, who reported on Kaine’s past remarks, also found this quote from the Associated Press about his remarks on the Wilkins allegation: “When I read it this morning, my reaction was the same I had when I read about the Clinton-Lewinsky affair: this is not appropriate conduct. It’s beneath the dignity of the office.”

Here's Brian Fallon, the Clinton campaign’s press secretary, trying to marginalize the story:

@woodruffbets Lousy piece of oppo. You shd ask whoever pitched it if they knew about AP and just misled you, or if they missed it entirely
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) August 17, 2016

@woodruffbets Except there is no quote contained in your story where he actually said that
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) August 17, 2016

And that totally blew up when Tim Kaine confirmed that he actually meant what he said about Clinton resigning in disgrace over the Lewinsky affair while in Cedar Rapid, Iowa:

"20 years ago I was disappointed like a lot of folks were but I tell ya, there is no reason to re-litigate problems of 20 years ago when Americans want to talk about is what do we do today and tomorrow, and so as I'm campaigning all across the country people are saying what do we do to get an economy growing again with prosperity that's shared, how do we make sure we are strong in the nation we're strong alliances in the world, how do we make sure we build up a community of respect? So past controversies aren't really important to the voters they want to know what we are going to do tomorrow," he told us.

We asked him to clarify if the report was true or false for the time the statement was made.

"It was not inaccurate that's true," he said.