There is not a snowball's chance in hell that outgoing Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard will ever be elected president, and it is equally unlikely she will ever again touch any nationwide office, having bowed out of her reelection bid after it became clear her own state was sick of her. It is extremely likely that Gabbard will in the near future announce that she no longer has a place in the Democratic Party and will therefore become an independent, or join a third party, or form her own party, one with blackjack and busts of deposed world autocrats that dispense pudding out of their hollowed nostrils.
We can take Gabbard's announcement that she is now suing 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for defamation, therefore, as a publicity stunt and nothing else.
In the last half of 2019, Clinton gave an interview in which she speculated that an unnamed Democratic candidate would be launching a third-party bid, saying "she's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far and that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up because she’s also a Russian asset." Clinton did not specify who she meant; that everyone immediately understood her to be referring to Gabbard speaks volumes about Gabbard and how she is now viewed at this point in her career.
Gabbard has now responded with a lawsuit claiming Clinton "recklessly impugned" her reputation to the tune of $50 million in damages—implying that Gabbard's cratering career was worth $50 million in the first place, which is itself a bold claim to be making in a court of law.
Readers around these parts will know we have little patience for Gabbard, who has long seemed to relish targeting Democrats with sharper attacks than those she reserves for foreign autocrats and who has been incessant in attempting to portray herself as holier-than-thou despite a history of cringeworthy and shameful stances and actions.
The observation that Russian trolls have fixated on Gabbard as a potential spoiler, however, is not controversial. Gabbard is "often mentioned in Russian propaganda and media, including by Kremlin-backed news agency RT," says Politico, clearly unworried about Gabbard launching new lawsuits directed at them. And the Mueller report clearly described an active Russian effort to boost spoiler candidate Jill Stein, during the 2016 elections, demonstrating the precise methods Russian intelligence is now known to use to stir controversy and support for those that they deem useful to their own goals.
That does not mean Gabbard is working for the Russians. Donald Trump is working for the Russians. Mitch McConnell, who worked to circumvent penalties leveled against Russian kleptocrats over 2016 Russian hacking and in exchange received a nine-figure "investment" in his state from one of the top kleptocrats targeted by those penalties, is working for the Russians. Gabbard is merely the recipient of dodgily premised Russian boosterism.
Clinton pointing that last part out is both accurate and uncontroversial. Clinton suggesting that Gabbard might be only too happy to help sabotage opposition to Trump by mounting a spurious and nonsensical third-party bid, something the Russia troll farms are unsubtly itching for, is an estimation of Gabbard's character that may be insulting, but is hardly, when aimed at someone who tosses gaudily toxic insults like "queen of warmongers" and "personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic party," a "reckless" smear of political character.