Tulsi Gabbard Is Suing Hillary Clinton Now

Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard hasn’t been on the debate stage in a few months, but she’s back making headlines today for her decision to sue Hillary Clinton for defamation.

Back in October, Clinton appeared on the podcast Campaign HQ and talked to host/Barack Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe about different forms of election interference. She said that during the 2016 presidential election, both Russian agents and Republicans saw third-party candidate Jill Stein as an asset. She said that she thinks both groups are looking ahead to use a 2020 Democratic candidate to their benefit again and while she didn’t name that candidate, it was clear she was talking about Tulsi Gabbard.

Now Gabbard has filed a defamation suit against Clinton, accusing her of having “smeared” Gabbard’s “political and personal reputation.”

The statement from her legal team claims Gabbard’s candidacy was “intentionally damaged by Clinton’s malicious and demonstrably false remarks.”

According to The Hill, Clinton’s spokesperson Nick Merrill responded by saying “that’s ridiculous.”

I don’t disagree. Gabbard’s lawyers said in her defense, “Tulsi Gabbard is a loyal American civil servant who has also dedicated her life to protecting the safety of all Americans.” The thing is, no one has said otherwise.

Here’s what Clinton actually said on that podcast:

They’re also going to do third-party again. I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on someone who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.

At the time Clinton made her comments, there was some confusion over their meaning. First, that “they” is a little vague. The “they” that she thinks is going to go third party is Republicans, not Russians–though part of that tactic is the force of Russian bots defending her online.

It’s also important to clarify that a Russian asset is not the same thing as a Russian agent. Clinton called Stein (and alluded to Gabbard as being) an asset to the Russian campaign to sow discord among American voters because of her divisiveness among American voters.

So how better to prove her dedication to Democratic unity than by suing a prominent former party leader? Way to prove everyone right, Tulsi.

It’s been speculated that Gabbard could be on Trump’s mind as a 2020 running mate. From her frequent, harsh criticism of other Democrats and Democratic institutions to choosing to vote “present” on impeachment, Gabbard hasn’t done much to combat that rumor or the reasoning behind it.

(image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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