Shadows

Former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has made waves with speculation that the Russians were up to more dirty tricks for the 2020 presidential election.

"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said, speaking on a podcast with former Obama adviser David Plouffe. "She's the favorite of the Russians."

While Secretary Clinton didn't name names, it's been assumed that she was referring to Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who, according to CNN "has been accused of being cozy with Russia in the past." Representative Gabbard and her campaign are among those making the assumption, with the candidate taking to Twitter to fire back.

Secretary Clinton seeing malfeasance in the air is nothing new; "vast right-wing conspiracy," anyone? And the Russians have been convenient targets of Democratic suspicion since the 2016 election. So in that sense, there's nothing to see here.

What makes this interesting is the presumption that Secretary Clinton is accusing Representative Gabbard of cooperating in an attempt to split the Democratic vote come next November. After all, even if one did presume that there would be a high level of unity within the party around supporting the eventual nominee (and that's far from a sure thing, in my opinion), the Russians wouldn't need the permission of a candidate to mobilize sock-puppets or bots on their behalf. And it seems unlikely that they would care about angering whichever politicians they chose to "assist."

Besides, the Russians don't actually have to do much of anything at this rate. I have no idea where Secretary Clinton is receiving her information, but it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be suspect. An outside party doesn't need to actually do anything in a situation like this. The belief that they're up to no good is all that it takes.