Tim Kaine Won't Say Whether Alleged Russian Document Cost Election

Former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine would not say Thursday whether a possibly fake Russian document that led former FBI Director James Comey to announce findings last year in the email probe cost he and Hillary Clinton the presidential election.

"There's no sense in me doing what-ifs," Kaine, the Virginia senator, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN. "This is serious business."

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the FBI received a purported Russian document during the campaign that agency officials believed was "unreliable."

It allegedly included an email from Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then head of the Democratic National Committee, claiming that Attorney General Loretta Lynch had told a top Clinton campaign staffer that she "would not let the FBI investigation into Clinton go too far."

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials told the Post that Comey relied on the fake document to announce his findings last July in the Clinton probe.

Comey, fired earlier this month by President Donald Trump, had not cleared his comments beforehand with the Justice Department.

Wasserman Schultz told CNN Wednesday that she had no role in the purported document.

"I never saw the e-mail and didn't author it," she told Erin Burnett.

Kaine said Thursday that he hoped Comey would testify before the various congressional committees investigating Moscow's role in the election.

"That will be obviously fertile ground for questions during former Director Comey's testimony," he told Blitzer, referring to the alleged document. "We've got to get to the bottom of this.

"A very troubling pattern has emerged over the last few months – and the security of the American democracy is at stake."

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