Attorneys for Tulsi Gabbard demanded that Hillary Clinton retract her statements about the congresswoman being a Russian asset.
In mid-October, Clinton claimed that Gabbard was being groomed by the Russians to run as a third-party candidate and foil the election for Democrats so that Trump would be reelected.
“I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said.
She added, “She is a favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. That’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she is also a Russian asset.”
Clinton tried to reframe her statement after facing outrage from Gabbard’s supporters, claiming that she believed the Republicans were grooming Gabbard instead of the Russians.
Gabbard’s attorneys told Clinton that statement was defamatory and demanded that she retract it and post the retraction to Twitter as a public notice.
“Your statement is defamatory, and we demand that you retract it immediately,” they wrote in the letter to Clinton.
Gabbard’s attorneys also addressed Clinton’s claim that she was referring to Republicans instead of the Russians, writing, “It appears you may now be claiming that this statement is about Republicans (not Russians) grooming Gabbard. But this makes no sense in light of what you actually said. After you made the statement linking Congresswoman Gabbard to the Russians, you (through your spokesman) doubled down on it with the Russian nesting dolls remark.”
Gabbard qualified for the next round of Democratic primary debates in November and has not shown any interest in a third-party run.
[Previous coverage: Tulsi Gabbard: ‘They will destroy you’ if you stand up to Clinton]
