Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate, defended the spray-painting of a bulldozer as the least she could do to express solidarity with North Dakota anti-pipeline protesters.

Authorities have reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Stein and running mate Ajamu Baraka for misdemeanor vandalism and trespassing in connection with allegedly spray-panting “I approve this message” on a bulldozer used in the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline project, the Inquisitr previously reported.

The bulldozer was used in the desecration of sacred Native American burial grounds, according to Stein, which she deemed in a statement as the real vandalism taking place at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Stein also insisted that the pipeline could endanger the drinking water in the area.

Speaking at a rally before about 250 supporters in Omaha, Nebraska, at a local college on Wednesday, Stein suggested that she had no choice but to engage in civil disobedience in the matter, the Omaha World-Herald explained.

“I felt like it was the least I could do in front of these Indian leaders, as they were putting their lives and their bodies on the line. What they are doing there is not just rescuing our water supply, our climate and our planet, they’re also lifting up this incredible vision of community and forgiveness. We should be dismantling our pipelines, not building new ones.”

Jill Stein Defends Her Vandalism: It’s For The Climate! https://t.co/DRveNvD6Uo pic.twitter.com/C4Z9VEhpvz — The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 9, 2016

“A group of 200 protesters including Stein and Baraka descended on a the construction site of the North Dakota Access Pipeline, a $3.8 million project promising to shuttle oil from North Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico,” The Daily Caller noted about the protest that led to the vandalism charge against Stein.

Those in the anti-pipeline movement suffered a setback today in federal court. A judge denied the Standing Rock Sioux’s effort to obtain a temporary injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granting of permits for the work. Federal officials have asked the pipeline builder, however, to voluntarily put the construction on pause “while the government reconsiders ‘any of its previous decisions’ on land that borders or is under Lake Oahe,” AP reported.

Sadly, the #StandingRockSiouxTribe could not stop construction on the Dakota Access pipeline. #StandWithStandingRock https://t.co/2f2Zcc8NYe — Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) September 9, 2016

Jill Stein, 66, is a medical doctor who declared in recent interviews that “politics is the mother of all illnesses” and that’s why she now practices what she calls political medicine. Stein was the Green Party standard-bearer in 2012 and also unsuccessfully ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010.

With a social justice focus on climate change and eradicating poverty, the far-left Green Party is seen as a natural home for some Bernie Sanders-supporting progressives — i.e., the #BernieOrBust or #NeverHillary cohort that used to #FeelTheBern — who are fundamentally unenthused about and feel disenfranchised over Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy. Stein has been actively embracing the Sanders cohort among those disillusioned with the Vermont senator’s endorsement of Clinton.

Dr. Stein has consistently rejected the premise that for liberals, Hillary Clinton is a lesser of two evils, and that a vote for a third party such as the Greens helps Donald Trump.

The Green Party candidate has also described Hillary Clinton as a warmongering corporatist and insisted that Clinton has already done some of the things that Donald Trump says he’s going to do if elected president.

Choose No Evil: The Case for Jill Stein https://t.co/Nt2tashOK9 — maritza mendez (@mivonne38) September 9, 2016

Stein needs a minimum 15 percent showing in the national polls to gain entry into the upcoming televised presidential debates. According to the Real Clear Politics average, she is supposedly receiving only about 3 percent backing. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is, or perhaps was, presumed to have a shot of making it. The former New Mexico governor has 9 percent support in the latest RCP tally, but it remains to be seen if the Aleppo gaffe on MSNBC will undermine his favorability with the electorate.

[Photo by Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx via AP Images]