http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fox-news-white-house-seth-rich_us_59809958e4b0d6e28a10cb6e?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067
Trump Linked To Fox News’ Bogus Seth Rich Story, Lawsuit
Alleges
huffingtonpost.com
The White House was briefed in advance about a claiming murderedbaseless Fox News report
Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich provided documents to WikiLeaks, according to a new
lawsuit that also alleges President encouraged the article’s publication.Donald Trump
Rod Wheeler, an ex-police detective, private investigator and paid Fox News commentator, made the
allegations in a suit filed against the network, parent company 21st Century Fox, Fox News reporter Malia
Zimmerman and Trump supporter Ed Butowsky.
In the lawsuit, , Wheeler alleged that Zimmerman fabricated quotes as she andfirst reported by NPR
Butowsky worked to advance “a political agenda for the Trump administration.”
Wheeler, who said he was approached by Butowsky in February and later retained by the Rich family to
investigate the murder, alleged that he never told Zimmerman he found evidence of an email exchange
between Rich and WikiLeaks or that powerful entities were impeding the police investigation into the young
staffer’s death in July 2016.
The erroneous claims about communications between Rich and WikiLeaks first surfaced on May 15, when
a Fox affiliate in Washington, D.C., ran a report. The quotes also appeared the next day in Zimmerman’s
since-retracted article on Fox News’ website.
On Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump “had no
knowledge of this story” and that it was“completely untrue” that the White House was involved in it.
Sanders acknowledged that her predecessor, Sean Spicer, met with Wheeler and Butowsky prior to
publication, but dismissed the significance of the White House discussion. (Spicer indicated he was “not
of the Rich story when asked about it on May 16.)The press secretary also said she was “not sure”aware”
if Trump believed that Rich was WikiLeaks’ source ―the crux of Fox News’ retracted story.
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russian hackers stole documents from the DNC, but
many Trump supporters have pushed the about Rich to distract frombogus conspiracy theory
investigations into whether Trump allies colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign.
“The accusation that published Malia Zimmerman’s story to help detract from coverage ofFoxNews.com
the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous,” Jay Wallace, president of news for Fox News, said in
a statement.“The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that
Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman.”
Zimmerman’s report, which attributed information to an unnamed source and Wheeler, spread quickly in
conservative media and was amplified by pro-Trump shows like “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity.”Host Sean
Hannity continued discussing the Rich story even after Fox News retracted Zimmerman’s report.
Wheeler’s lawsuit sheds light on how the story was handled inside Fox News. It includes an email
Butowsky sent to “Fox & Friends” co-hosts the night before Zimmerman’s story was published, in which
he suggested how to frame the story for Trump’s benefit.
“One of the big conclusions we need to draw from this is that the Russians did not hack our computer
systems and ste[a]l emails and there was no collusion like trump with the Russians,” Butowsky wrote,
according to the lawsuit.