White House, Fox News Push Back on Allegations in Seth Rich Investigator Lawsuit

Media uses lawsuit by former Fox News contributor to assert White House behind "fake" Seth Rich claims.

By Al Perrotta Published on August 1, 2017
https://stream.org/trump-fox-news-se...and-the-truth/

The morning was greeted with a bombshell tweet from NPR: "Exclusive: Lawsuit alleges Fox News and wealthy Trump supporter worked with White House to concoct fake news story." By afternoon, the White House, Fox News and the GOP donor were pushing back hard.

The gist of the story, now splashed far and loud across mainstream media: Fox News teamed up with an enthusiastic President Trump to concoct a false tale that Seth Rich was the real DNC leaker and possibly murdered for it. The goal: deflecting attention from the Russian collusion story.

This narrative, timed to wipe aside coverage of the unfolding scandal around ex-DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, sidesteps a crucial fact: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange himself suggested Rich was murdered because he was the DNC leaker shortly after it happened. Other researchers have also ripped apart the official story since day one. But let's hold that for another time.

Wheeler's Lawsuit Against Fox News

The accusation is that Fox News teamed with the White House stems from lawsuit filed Tuesday by Ron Wheeler. He's a private investigator, former D.C homicide cop and former Fox News contributor. He had reported on the Rich case for Fox News. Wheeler was then hired by GOP businessman Ed Butowsky on behalf of the Rich family to investigate the murder himself. He later told George Webb that the evidence was pointing him away from a random street crime and toward a possible connection with Rich's work.

In May 2017, Fox News ran a Seth Rich story by Malia Zimmerman that featured Wheeler and what he was uncovering. This included the push-back he was getting after then-DNC head and former Clinton aide Donna Brazile started asking the police about him. The report also alleged that the FBI had uncovered 44,000 emails Rich had sent to WikiLeaks.

In the broadcast version of the story, Wheeler is heard talking about elements of the case. At other times he is quoted. After the story aired, Wheeler said Zimmerman misquoted him. The FBI and Metropolitan Police Department also denied elements of the story. A week later Fox News pulled it, and allegedly blamed Wheeler.

The Rich Family, which by now had Democrat crisis manager Bob Bauman as their spokesman, dumped Wheeler. They also demanded he stop talking about the case.

Now Wheeler has filed suit against Fox News, claiming defamation....



....Taking Apart Fox News to Avoid the Real News

The NPR article goes to great length to untangle exactly how the story evolved at Fox News. How the few questionable lines came and went, and why. It's so into the weeds one loses track of the real issue in the suit: who's to blame for the PR debacle. Even the truth of what Wheeler uncovered in his investigation is lost. Fox News isn't even conceding yet there was anything wrong with the story.

Jay Wallace, Fox News President of News, has issued this statement:

The accusation that FoxNews.com published Malia Zimmerman's story to help detract from coverage of the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous. The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman. 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.

It has nothing to do with Seth Rich either.
The NPR account is about how a Seth Rich story ended up on one network in 2017. It's not at all about how Seth Rich ended up shot dead on a DC street in 2016.



....According to the lawsuit, Spicer met at the White House with Wheeler and Butowsky to review the Rich story about a month before it aired on Fox News. Spicer said Monday, "They were just informing me of the [Fox] story." He added he's not aware of any contact between Butowsky and Trump.

However, a Butowsky tweet to Wheeler 36 hours before the story broke referred Trump."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."

The story came out right after the firing of James Comey and the height of Russia collusion fever. So, the theory goes, the President wanted the story that Rich was likely the source of the WikiLeaks published to counter the Russian narrative.

Butowsky now says he never shared drafts of the story with Trump or his aides — that he was joking with a friend. He also calls the lawsuit "bull****."
...



...Easy for Killer to Walk Free When Others are Targeted

...Dragging the President into the lawsuit and story is designed to create the illusion of impropriety, and put more pressure on Fox News. Most of all, it allows the click bait tweet you're seeing everywhere today in various forms: "Trump Colluded with Fox News for Fake Seth Rich Story."

If only NPR, Washington Post, CNN and others trumpeting this lawsuit today had as much interest in hunting Rich's killer as they do hunting Trump and Fox News.

Perhaps the Rich family will allow Rod Wheeler to fully share what he found. Then we'll see how quickly NPR and friends again forget the name "Seth Rich."