LAWSUIT: Trump Directed Fox News to Push Fake Seth Rich Murder Story and Blame Democrats to Detract From Russia

Bombshell, if True

A lawsuit against Fox News by a private investigator charges President Donald Trump with directing Fox News to pursue the fake story of the real murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich in an attempt to distract from the Russia scandal. Rich was shot and killed last year at the age of 27. The false Fox News and far right wing conspiracy theory narrative claimed he provided Wikileaks with the DNC emails that were damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and exposed former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s poor decisions that led to the estrangement of many Bernie Sanders supporters.

Seth Rich’s family has repeatedly urged Fox News and others to cease pushing the fake story, which is very hurtful to them and his memory.

The Daily Beast reports Rod Wheeler, the private investigator cited by Fox News, who is now suing the cable news network, claims Fox News:

1) Fabricated quotes from him to make the false connection; 2) Sent an article draft to the White House for review; and 3) Took orders directly from Trump to establish a connection between the DNC and Rich’s murder “to help lift the cloud of the Russia investigation.”

If the allegations are true, it places both the president and the news network in a devastating position.

NPR offers far more insight.

“The Fox News Channel and a wealthy supporter of President Trump worked in concert under the watchful eye of the White House to concoct a story about the murder of a young Democratic National Committee aide, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday,” NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik reports.

Wheeler’s lawsuit “charges that a Fox News reporter created quotations out of thin air and attributed them to him to propel her story.”

The lawsuit focuses particular attention on the role of the Trump supporter, Ed Butowsky, in weaving the story. He is a wealthy Dallas investor and unpaid Fox commentator on financial matters, who has emerged as a reliable Republican surrogate in recent years. Butowsky offered to pay for Wheeler to investigate the death of the DNC aide, Seth Rich, on behalf of his grieving parents in Omaha.

On April 20, a month before the story ran, Butowsky and Wheeler — the investor and the investigator — met at the White House with then Press Secretary Sean Spicer to brief him on what they were uncovering.

The first page of the lawsuit quotes a voicemail and text from Butowsky boasting that President Trump himself had reviewed drafts of the Fox News story just before it went to air and was published.

Fox News president of news, “Jay Wallace, told NPR Monday there was no ‘concrete evidence’ that Wheeler was misquoted” by a Fox News reporter. But that does not answer all the other questions the lawsuit raises.

Here’s one of many Fox News stories on Seth Rich.

Sean Hannity was a leading proponent of the conspiracy theory. His commentary was so disgraceful he ultimately was forced to apologize in May.

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