swift-boat

Verb

swiftboat (third-person singular simple present swiftboats, present participle swiftboating, simple past and past participle swiftboated)

1. (US, derogatory, transitive) To attack a politician with specious claims.
   • No one should have been surprised that the Republicans would try to swiftboat Hillary in 2016, turning an accomplished diplomat into a feckless bungler who lied to cover up her own failures.2015, David Brock, Killing the Messenger, →ISBN
2. (broadly) To smear; to attack someone or something's reputation using slander, misrepresentation, or false accusations.
   • The Borgia family has had such a bad reputation over all these hundreds of years. Some of it is merited, and for some of it, they were swiftboated. The cardinals hired writers to write bad things about them.2013 January 7, Sam Thielman, “The Man From Oz Finds Religion”, in Adweek

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