Former Trump challenger Hillary Clinton is refusing to accept the legal documents related to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) $50 million defamation suit, the presidential hopeful’s attorney told the New York Post.
According to Gabbard’s attorney, Brian Dunne, Clinton has refused to accept the legal documents on two occasions. The process server was unable to deliver the papers on both Tuesday and Wednesday, per The Post:
Dunne said their process server first attempted to effect service at Clinton’s house in Chappaqua on Tuesday afternoon — but was turned away by Secret Service agents.
The agents directed the server to Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, who on Wednesday claimed at his Washington, DC, firm, Williams & Connolly, that he was unable to accept service on Clinton’s behalf, said Dunne.
“I find it rather unbelievable that Hillary Clinton is so intimidated by Tulsi Gabbard that she won’t accept service of process,” Dunne told The Post. “But I guess here we are.”
Dunne added that his team is considering its next steps.
Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton this month following the twice-failed presidential candidate’s suggestion that Gabbard was the “favorite” of the Russians.
Clinton made the remarks during an October interview with David Plouffe, former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager:
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.
While Clinton did not specifically name Gabbard in the interview, Clinton’s spokesman Nick Merrill essentially confirmed that the former secretary of state was referring to Gabbard. When asked specifically, he told NBC News, “If the nesting doll fits.”
Gabbard hit back hard, calling Clinton the “queen of warmongers” and blasted the “concerted campaign to destroy my reputation”:
… concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and …
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019
… powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019
The lawsuit was filed in January at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Her campaign said in a statement that Clinton “deliberately and maliciously made false statements in an attempt to derail Rep. Gabbard’s campaign, by alleging that Gabbard is a ‘Russian asset.'”
“Tulsi Gabbard is a loyal American civil servant who has also dedicated her life to protecting the safety of all Americans,” the statement continued.
“Rep. Gabbard’s presidential campaign continues to gain momentum, but she has seen her political and personal reputation smeared and her candidacy intentionally damaged by Clinton’s malicious and demonstrably false remarks,” it added.
Gabbard appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight upon filing the lawsuit, explaining why she took legal action.
Gabbard stated:
So when you have someone as powerful as Hillary Clinton seeking to smear my reputation, essentially implying that I’m a traitor to the country that I love, what she essentially is doing is taking my life away.
So what this lawsuit is about is actually valuing the honor and the loyalty and integrity that every one of our service members embodies and saying that no one can try to defame them. We’ll not allow that to go unchecked.
“It should have been for $50 billion,” she told a reporter last week. “What is your life worth to you? What is your honor and loyalty, your identity, worth to you?”:
Rep. Gabbard on her new $50M lawsuit against Hillary Clinton:
"It should have been for $50B. What is your life worth to you? What is your honor and loyalty, your identity, worth to you?" https://t.co/6jmfdwgnwp pic.twitter.com/UboUB7VBLy
— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 24, 2020
Gabbard’s battle with the Democrat establishment is ongoing. She said this week she has yet to receive a response from CNN, explaining why she was excluded from the network’s upcoming two-day town hall event in New Hampshire — an event that includes Deval Patrick, whose poll numbers fall below Gabbard both nationally and in the Granite State.
“I don’t even think we’ve gotten a response to date about why they’re excluding the first female combat veteran ever to run for president, the only woman of color in the race,” she said:
Asked about not being invited to the @CNN town halls next week in NH, @TulsiGabbard tells @foxnewspolitics "we received no explanation. I don't even think we've gotten a response to date about why they're excluding the first female combat veteran ever to run for president" #FITN pic.twitter.com/njxusUoXWt
— Paul Steinhauser (@steinhauserNH1) January 28, 2020
“We’re still waiting for an answer. It’s really a disservice to voters in New Hampshire and across the country to not allow them the opportunity to hear from myself included with the other candidates as we head into election day,” she added.
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