Hillary Clinton is boosting President Trump’s voter base by suggesting Russia is rooting for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to win the White House, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan reasoned Friday.
Mr. Amash, an independent who left the Republican Party in July, stated the assumption on Twitter after Mrs. Clinton referred to Ms. Gabbard, a Hawaii Democrat seeking her party’s presidential nomination, as a “Russian asset.”
“The thing we know for sure is that Hillary Clinton is a Donald Trump asset,” Mr. Amash wrote on Twitter.
“Hillary does—and did—drive many people into the arms of Donald Trump,” Mr. Amash tweeted. “Her attack on Tulsi does likewise.”
Mrs. Clinton, the former Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Mr. Trump in 2016, caused an uproar after suggesting in an interview released this week that Russia is “grooming” the Hawaii congresswoman and current White House hopeful to drop her bid for the party’s nomination and instead run in 2020 as a third-party candidate.
“She is a favorite of the Russians,” Mrs. Clinton said without mentioning Ms. Gabbard by name.
Ms. Gabbard fired back Friday, saying she would not run as a third-party candidate and blasting Mrs. Clinton as “the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party.”
Her campaign has since challenged Mrs. Clinton to enter the Democratic primary.
“Hillary Clinton accused Tulsi Gabbard — a combat veteran, soldier and Major in the Army National Guard — of being ’groomed’ to be a ’Russian asset,’” Ms. Gabbard’s campaign said in a fundraising email Saturday, The Hill reported. “Tulsi fights back and demands Hillary join the race and face her directly.”
Mr. Amash was first elected to Congress in 2010 and is currently serving his fifth term representing Michigan’s Third Congressional District, which includes Grand Rapids, the state’s second-largest city. He left the GOP in July, weeks after becoming the first Republican member of Congress to publicly accuse Mr. Trump of committing “impeachable conduct.” Democrats have since initiated impeachment proceedings against the president.
The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 race using a range of tactics meant to undermine public faith in the democratic process, denigrate Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and harm her electability. The Department of Justice has since filed criminal charges against a number of Russian nationals implicated in the effort, several accused of meddling in the race on social media in part by posting content encouraging American users to vote for a third-party presidential candidate.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.