August 1, 2017

Lawsuit: Fox News and Trump Worked to Push Seth Rich Murder Conspiracy

A Fox commentator alleges the fake story was used to divert attention from Russia.

Andrew Harnik/AP

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A new bombshell lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges the Trump administration encouraged Fox News to create a fake news story concerning the death of Seth Rich, the former Democratic National Convention staffer who was murdered in July 2016, in order to divert attention away from the Russia scandal. The now-retracted story, written by reporter Malia Zimmerman, had suggested Rich was in communication with Wikileaks, implying that he—not Russian hackers—was the source of DNC emails published by the site.

NPR reports the lawsuit was brought by Rod Wheeler, a former Washington DC detective and longtime paid Fox commentator, who was hired by Republican donor Ed Butowsky to investigate Rich’s murder. According to Wheeler, the network defamed him by knowingly fabricating quotes and attributing them to him in its story, which was titled “Seth Rich, slain DNC staffer, had contact with WikiLeaks, say multiple sources.” 

In the suit, Wheeler charges that Butowsky ginned up the bogus story to “put to bed speculation” the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

The lawsuit also claims President Donald Trump personally reviewed the Fox story before publication, while Sean Spicer met with Butowsky and Wheeler, who briefed the White House on the story’s progress.

Fox News told NPR the lawsuit did not contain any “concrete evidence” it had concocted the article. The White House and Butowsky did not respond to Mother Jones‘ request for a comment.

Update: Fox News responded to the allegations cited in the suit, calling them “completely erroneous.”  

“The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman,” Jay Wallace, president of news at Fox News, said in a statement provided to Mother Jones. “Additionally, FOX News vehemently denies the race discrimination claims in the lawsuit—the dispute between Zimmerman and Rod Wheeler has nothing to do with race.”

You can read Wheeler’s lawsuit below:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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