TAPPER: So when Donald Trump smears people, Democrats all stand up and say, you're smearing someone. Stop it.
Why don't Democrats do that to say that about Tulsi Gabbard? It seems like an obvious smear. I don't see any evidence she's a Russian asset. It seems like a wild accusation.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes, I think statements like that ought to be backed by evidence.
"We went through a Red Scare in the 1950s under McCarthyism, and I just think that it is wrong for people to level that kind of stuff at the congresswoman with no proof," said Sanders campaign co-chair Nina Turner on MSNBC. "We know what people can do to malign and mess up somebody's reputation."
Turner insisted she deserves respect because she is still a member of the military, and she is running for president. And she agreed with CNN news commentator Van Jones, who stood up for Gabbard almost immediately after the allegation spread, and argued Clinton targeted Gabbard as revenge for endorsing Sanders in the 2016 primary.
"Tulsi Gabbard was picked out by the Democratic Party and put at the top of the DNC. They thought she was going to be their golden girl," Jones recalled during CNN's "OutFront."
He added, "And she got that position and she looked around and saw Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other people, Clinton allies, doing stuff they shouldn't be doing in the primary and Tulsi publicly quit and endorsed Bernie Sanders, and it's been payback hell ever since."
***
Nothing has changed since the 2016 election. As Glenn Greenwald previously highlighted, the tactic of maligning critics as Russia sympathizers, Putin stooges, or outright agents of the Kremlin is alive and well.
When Sanders appeared to stand in Clinton's way, "slimy suggestions" emerged of his "dark connections to Russia." In January 2016, Senator Claire McCaskill, a Clinton supporter, warned that Republicans would spread ads "with a hammer and sickle" if Democrats nominated Sanders. "Pro-Clinton pundits linked Sanders to Communists through his 1980s praise of [Fidel] Castro and the Sandinistas. All of that culminated in Republicans like Lindsey Graham and [the] National Review citing Sanders' honeymoon in the Soviet Union as proof of his suspicious loyalties," Greenwald added.
Bloomberg's Leonid Bershidsky wrote, "Sanders's long-ago 'honeymoon' in the Soviet Union is held up by his opponents as evidence of dubious judgment, and even communist sympathies or anti-American tendencies."
Gabbard is not likely to be the Democratic Party's nominee, but it is possible Sanders will do as well if not better than he did in 2016. That virtually guarantees Clinton, her proxies, and liberals will poison discussions about the election with this kind of malicious disinformation.
If Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset for having foreign policy views that diverge from the political establishment, then the same faction may contend Sanders is an asset because he regularly attacks the capitalist economy and backs radical reforms. They may construe any of Elizabeth Warren's plans that challenge corporate power in this same manner.
The media echo chamber aids and abets this smoke screen tactic, which makes it possible for elites like Clinton to avoid taking any responsibility for actions that have fueled the current political climate. That includes Trump's election and a Russiagate investigation, which can largely be traced to claims generated by Democrats that fueled a conspiracy theory that Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not substantiate.
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