Sandy MaloneChappaqua, NY – Former Secretary of State and failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been dodging process servers charged with giving her the $50 million defamation lawsuit filed against her by U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).
Current Presidential candidate Gabbard, a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, filed the lawsuit against Clinton after she claimed the Kremlin was “grooming” a candidate to be a “Russian asset,” the Washington Examiner reported.
Clinton claimed in October of 2019 that Gabbard was “a favorite of the Russians” who was being readied for a third-party run in 2020, FOX News reported.
Although Clinton didn’t actually use Gabbard’s name when talking about the Russian threat of interference in 2020, her spokesman confirmed whom she was talking about.
“If the nesting doll fits…” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said, making a reference to Russian dolls that stack inside each other, when he was asked if the former Secretary of State had been talking about the Hawaiian congresswoman, according to FOX News.
Gabbard, who said she has “dedicated my entire adult life to serving our country,” didn’t sit still for the slam.
“And for Hillary Clinton and her powerful allies to attempt to smear me and accuse me – really implying that I’m a traitor to the country that I love – is something that I cannot allow to go unchecked,” the congresswoman from Hawaii said.
Before she was elected to Congress in 2012, Gabbard did tours in Iraq for the U.S. military, according to FOX News.
Gabbard filed the $50 million defamation of character lawsuit against Clinton on Jan. 22, claiming that the former Presidential candidate had “carelessly and recklessly impugned” her reputation, NBC News reported.
“Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of the United States, a position Clinton has long coveted, but has not been able to attain,” according to Gabbard’s lawsuit.
But thus far, Gabbard’s attorneys have been flummoxed by Clinton’s attempts to avoid the process servers charged with delivering her a copy of the lawsuit, the New York Post reported.
Brian Dunne, attorney for Gabbard, said that U.S. Secret Service agents turned away a process server at the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua on Tuesday.
The agents told the process server that the documents should be sent to Clinton’s attorney instead, FOX News reported.
After that, Clinton’s own attorney, David Kendall, refused service on Clinton’s behalf on Wednesday when a process server attempted to deliver the suit to his law firm, Williams & Connolly, the New York Post reported.
“I find it rather unbelievable that Hillary Clinton is so intimidated by Tulsi Gabbard that she won’t accept service of process,” Gabbard’s attorney said. “But I guess here we are.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and said its goal was to hold Clinton and other “political elites” responsible for “distorting the truth in the middle of a critical Presidential election, NBC News reported.
It also alleged that Clinton’s remarks have caused Gabbard to suffer an economic loss that her attorneys said they can prove in court.
“Although Rep. Gabbard’s presidential campaign continues to gain momentum, she has seen her political and personal reputation smeared and her candidacy intentionally damaged by Clinton’s malicious and demonstrably false remarks,” attorney Dunne said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed, according to NBC News.
The lawsuit said that Clinton had demonstrated a “personal hostility” toward Gabbard and “resorted to a damaging whisper campaign founded on lies, and when presented with the opportunity to retract her damaging remarks, she refused.”
Gabbard’s complaint said she believed Clinton’s ire stemmed from her endorsement of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) for the 2016 Presidential election, NBC News reported.
The Hawaiian congresswoman was one of the first Democrats and the “most prominent politician” to have endorsed Sanders when she announced her support for the Vermont senator.
Gabbard’s attorneys said they are evaluating next steps for having the lawsuit put into Clinton’s own hands, the New York Post reported.