Tulsi Gabbard is “the favorite of the Russians,” Hillary Clinton asserted last Friday. “They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.” But Clinton wasn’t done; she went on to claim of the 2016 Green Party candidate, “That’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she’s also a Russian asset. She’s a Russian asset! I mean, totally. They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate.” So, evidently everyone who does not bow to Clinton is working for the Russians. Who’s unhinged?

Clearly, Clinton has never come to grips with the fact that she lost the 2016 election fair and square, and now she’s doubling down on the debunked Russian-collusion conspiracy hoax, which her own campaign was responsible for seeding. The idea that Gabbard or Stein are Russian assets is so laughably delusional that many may be wondering if Hillary is suffering from some form of dementia. Other than Trump Derangement Syndrome, that is.

Both Gabbard and Stein were quick to hit back at Clinton. Stein kept it rather muted, stating, “It’s a shame HRC is peddling conspiracy theories to justify her failure instead of reflecting on [the] real reasons Dems lost in 2016.” Gabbard, however, leveled both barrels, calling Clinton “the queen of warmongers,” the “embodiment of corruption,” and the “personification of rot” now afflicting the Democrat Party. She further asserted, “From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and … powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.”

Other than fruitlessly attempting to defend her own outsized bruised ego, why is Clinton weighing in and attacking a fellow Democrat who is currently polling at just over 1% and has no legitimate shot of winning the nomination? There appear to be two reasons: The first is that Clinton actually believes the Russian conspiracy hoax to be true. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, Clinton still holds that the Russians are the primary reason she lost. The second reason is that Clinton has become so obsessed with preventing President Donald Trump from winning reelection that she has decided to try to kill off any potentially potent third-party leftist candidates who could siphon away votes from the eventual Democrat nominee, presumably either Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden — or even herself.

But Clinton may have picked a fight she won’t win, as Gabbard has refused to be bullied. In fact, Clinton was the first to blink as she just backed out of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit on Friday in Washington, DC, given that Gabbard is also scheduled to speak.

The real irony here is that Clinton, not Trump or Gabbard, is the one guilty of acting as a stooge for the Russians. Clinton has been “groomed” into supporting Vladimir Putin’s efforts to sow political discord aimed at undermining confidence in America’s electoral system.