According to a complaint filed on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York City against Fox News, Malia Zimmerman and Ed Butowsky, Rod Wheeler, a private investigator and former paid commenter for Fox News, claims the network and Zimmerman worked with Butowsky and President Donald Trump to release false information about the death of Seth Rich. This comes after Wheeler told CNN in May that the quotes in the story were fabricated.
In the suit, Wheeler alleges that the parties involved intended to divert the public’s attention from speculation about the administration’s ties to Russia. Furthermore, the claims a reporter for Fox News created fake quotations and attributed them to him to propel they story.
According to NPR, who first reported on the suit, the story in question, which first ran in May, was retracted a week later. However, at this time, Fox News has taken no action in response to what it said was a failure to adhere to the network’s standards.
via NPR:
The network cited an unnamed FBI official. And the report relied heavily on Rod Wheeler, a former police detective, hired months earlier on behalf of the Riches by Ed Butowsky.
These developments took place during growing public concerns over a federal investigation into the Trump camp’s possible collusion with the Russian government during the campaign. The allegations have since touched on the president’s son and son-in-law, his former campaign manager, his attorney general and his first national security adviser, who resigned as a result.
The question of Rich’s death took on greater urgency for Butowsky after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in early May. Comey had been overseeing the Russia investigation. The story ran just a week later.
Fox’s report went sideways shortly after it was posted online and aired on Fox & Friends. It was denounced by the Rich family, D.C. police, Democratic Party officials, and even, privately, by some journalists within the network. Within hours, Wheeler told other news outlets that Fox News had put words in his mouth.
NPR reports that the filing includes a text message from Butowsky, a Texas wealth manager and avid Trump supporter, to Wheeler, in which he discussed President Trump’s “eagerness” to have the story published.
“Not to add any more pressure but the president just read the article. He wants the article out immediately. It’s now all up to you. But don’t feel the pressure,” Butowsky texted Wheeler according to the filing.
Wheeler’s suit claims that the purpose of the article was to establish that Seth Rich provided WikiLeaks with the DNC emails to shift the blame from Russia and temper the speculation that President Trump colluded with Russia in an attempt to influence the outcome of the Presidential election.
Who was Seth Rich?
Seth Rich was an employee for the DNC who was fatally shot and killed in Washington, D.C. Following his death, his murder spurred several conspiracy theories about the crime, including the claim that Rich had been involved with the leaked DNC emails in 2016.
On the night of Sunday, July 10, 2016, Rich was shot about a block from his apartment in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Earlier that night, Rich was at Lou’s City Bar, a sports bar approximately 1.8 miles from his apartment. Rich left around 1:30 or 1:45. At 4:20 AM, police were alerted to gunfire by an automated gunfire locator. Within approximately one minute after the gun shots, police officers found Rich with multiple gunshot wounds, in a conscious and breathing state. He was transported to a nearby hospital, where he later died.
According to police, he died from two shots to the back and may have been killed in an attempted robbery, noting that the neighborhood had recently been plagued by robberies.
