Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian pawn; Hillary Clinton suggest and Tulsi Gabbard fires back

It is Hillary Clinton against Tulsi Gabbard on the sidelines of the 2020 presidential race.

The congresswoman from Hawaii fought back after Clinton seemed to call her "the Russians' favourite" in a recent interview and said she believes the Russians “got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate.” Clinton, the former senator, US Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, did not mention Gabbard directly.

In a series of tweets on Friday, Gabbard called Clinton the "personification of the rot that has made the Democratic Party so sick for so long." Gabbard also claimed that there was a "coordinated campaign" to destroy her reputation since she announced her presidential run in January.

“It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me,” Gabbard tweeted about Clinton. “Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.”

There is continuing reluctance in the Democratic Party or a repeat of the 2016 presidential race when Russia intervened in the US election in an attempt to help Donald Trump defeat Clinton. US intelligence agencies have warned that Russia is also planning to get involved in the 2020 presidential election. Russian President Vladimir Putin has mocked that possibility and joked earlier this month that Moscow "would certainly intervene again."

During a Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday, Gabbard criticized a TV commentator who said she said "an asset to Russia." She called the comments "completely despicable."

Without mentioning Gabbard, Clinton seemed to repeat the commentator's comment during a podcast performance this week on "Campaign HQ with David Plouffe." Plouffe was President Obama's campaign leader in 2008 and served as the President's senior advisor.

“She’s the favourite of the Russians,”  Clinton said, referring to the person she had previously identified as a woman "currently in the Democratic primary." "They have a lot of sites and bots and other ways to support her so far."

Gabbard, who is polling with the very low single figures, took part in a primary debate on Tuesday after threatening to boycott what she claimed the Democratic Party was "rigging" the elections. She barely reached the qualifications of the Democratic National Committee for the October debate after falling short in September.

In the interview, Clinton also called President Trump "Vladimir Putin's dream." She further said that Trump's inauguration speech was "like a declaration of war to half of America." Clinton also describes 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein as "A Russian asset."

The Russians know they can't win without an external candidate, Clinton added.

Stein, who ran against Trump and Clinton as a Green Party candidate, received about 1% of the vote in the 2016 elections, but some Democrats said her candidacy took away the votes from Clinton and helped Trump win, particularly in states like Wisconsin. The Senate intelligence committee asked Stein for documents as part of her investigation into Russian interference in the elections, as she attended a dinner in Moscow in 2015, sponsored by the Russian television network RT with Putin. Stein said she was "present with a message of peace, diplomacy and cooperation in the Middle East."

In a tweet Friday, Stein Clinton accused of  “peddling conspiracy theories to justify her failure instead of reflecting on real reasons Dems lost in 2016.”