Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s lawyer is demanding that Hillary Clinton retract comments she made last month that claimed Gabbard’s efforts to become president were backed by Russia.
“Your statement is defamatory, and we demand that you retract it immediately,” Gabbard’s lawyer wrote, calling on Hillary to “immediately” verbally retract her slam at Gabbard, as The Hill reported.
The Hawaii congresswoman’s lawyer also wants Hillary Clinton to publish her retraction on Twitter.
During a podcast in October, Clinton speculated that Tulsi Gabbard was backed by Russia and that 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein might have been a Russian asset.
“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. She’s the favorite of the Russians,” Clinton said of Gabbard at the time.
Even though the Clinton camp later claimed Hillary was talking about Republicans grooming Gabbard and not Russians, Gabbard’s lawyer rejected that excuse.
“It appears you may now be claiming that this statement is about Republicans (not Russians) grooming Gabbard,” the letter to Clinton from Gabbard’s lawyer read. “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.”
Tulsi Gabbard sought to push back against Clinton during an appearance on “The View” last week.
“Hillary Clinton throughout her career has led with a foreign policy of interventionism and being the world’s police going and toppling dictators in other countries that has caused such destruction and loss of life. I’m against that,” Gabbard said then.
“I’m running for president to change that. Rather than actually debate me on the issues, she and others are resorting to these smear tactic campaigns seeking to undermine me, smear my character and sending a message to anyone who dissents toe the line, or you too will be smeared,” she added.
