Washington (CNN) Tulsi Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, alleging the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee "lied" about the Hawaii congresswoman's ties to Russia during a 2019 interview.

The lawsuit stems from an October 2019 interview in which Clinton said that a Democrat running in the presidential primary was being groomed to run as a third-party candidate and was a favorite of the Russians.

"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."

Clinton, in the same interview, suggested that person she was talking about was a "Russian asset," while not naming Gabbard.

When CNN asked Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill whether the former secretary of state was referring to Gabbard in the interview, Merrill said, "If the nesting doll fits" --- a reference to Russian nesting dolls.

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