Last week, Hillary Clinton accused Russia of “grooming” Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for a third-party presidential bid. There isn’t evidence to back that up, which raises questions of why Clinton made the claim, where her allegations came from and if Clinton’s attacks actually aided Russia in sowing discord in the Democratic party.

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Editor’s note, 10/23/19: Yesterday, we learned that Hillary Clinton spokesperson Nick Merrill claimed that she was referring to Republicans, not Russians, as “grooming” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for a third-party run. After further review of the audio where Clinton makes this statement, as well as a transcript of the segment, we still interpret her as referring to Russia as “grooming” Gabbard.

When CNN initially asked Merrill about Clinton’s comments and if she was referring to Gabbard, he said, “If the nesting doll fits,” without telling the network that it had misinterpreted the comment. He also told CNN, “This is not some outlandish claim. This is reality. If the Russian propaganda machine, both their state media and their bot and troll operations, is backing a candidate aligned with their interests, that is just a reality, it is not speculation.”

By the end of the day, Merrill would have had access to not only CNN’s story, but a trove of nonpartisan and partisan articles that interpreted the comment in the same way. However, it wasn’t until that night that Merrill suggested on Twitter that everyone had gotten that part of the story wrong.

If Clinton truly meant that Republicans were “grooming” Gabbard, this issue remains: It was said without providing evidence, making the statement invalid.

We encourage our readers to listen to the original audio here and read a transcript of the segment here.