According to a new report from Rolling Stone, a former pro-Trump D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Officer named Doug Berlin meddled into a legitimate investigation of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, whose death in 2016 became a focal point among pro-Trump conspiracy theorists.
As the publication reports, Berlin leaked the name of a witness to Rich’s murder to a pro-Trump podcaster who had claimed that the Democratic National Committee had murdered Rich for supposedly being behind the theft of documents and data from the DNC during the 2016 presidential election.
Federal prosecutor Deborah Sines, who was investigating the Rich murder, was shocked when she saw her witness’s name publicly leaked to a right-wing blog and subsequently started trying to track down who could be behind it.
After getting some assistance from an anonymous tipster, Sines eventually discovered that Berlin was behind the leak.
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Berlin had reportedly been pushing conspiracy theories about Rich since the day after Rich’s murder, as he allegedly told a fellow cop that “the DNC whacked him” before any investigation had even been conducted.
When confronted about this, Berlin resigned from his position and said that he would never agree to keep quiet about his belief that the DNC murdered Rich.
As of this writing, Rich’s murder remains unsolved.